# Uptime Robot + WordPress > Here’s how I integrated Uptime Robot API with WordPress to automate website uptime monitoring, achieve unlimited data retention, and display statuses effortlessly. Author: Farhan Munim Published: 17 December 2024 Updated: 26 October 2026 Tags: PHP, API Source: https://farhan.app/blog/uptime-robot-wordpress/ ## Why use Uptime Robot for monitoring websites in WordPress? Monitoring our website’s uptime is essential to ensure its reliability, especially for critical systems. In this post, we’ll see how I use the [Uptime Robot](https://uptimerobot.com/?red=farhand8524b) API—a popular and robust third-party tool—to automate uptime tracking directly in WordPress. ## Why Uptime Robot? We chose Uptime Robot because: 1. Popular and robust: Uptime Robot has a proven track record of reliability. It’s trusted by thousands of users worldwide and simply works. 2. Third-party reliability: Using a third-party tool ensures that even if our systems are down, we can still monitor and access the status page. 3. Why not self-host? While tools like [Uptime Kuma](https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma/wiki) are great alternatives, self-hosted solutions could fail alongside our systems, leaving us unable to track status when we need it most. 4. Notifications: We can trigger instant notifications like an email when our site is down! 5. Free Tier and API: Uptime Robot’s free tier offers generous features, including an API that we leverage here. The API is read-only, so there are no security concerns about unwanted modifications. ## Data retention By default, Uptime Robot’s free tier retains uptime history for 90 days. However, by using this WordPress solution: - We will use posts as data storage: Each day’s uptime data is saved as a new WordPress post, allowing unlimited retention (or as much as our hosting storage permits). - We control our data, and it’s always available for reference. ## Using WordPress posts instead of a custom post type Why store uptime data in standard posts? - This solution is designed for a dedicated status site (e.g., `status.oursite.com`) that has no other content. - Posts provide a simple and effective structure to display uptime information dynamically without the overhead of custom post types. ## How it works 1. Fetches site status and 24-hour uptime percentage every 5 minutes using WP-Cron. 2. Each day, a new post is created with: - Title: Current date in `dd-mm-yyyy` format. - Tags: Status values like success, outage, or unknown. - Custom Field: Uptime percentage for the last “day”. 3. Uptime Robot status returned value –> stored status - `2` = `success` - `8` and `9` = `outage` - `0` and `1` = `unknown` 4. Unlimited Data Retention: - Posts ensure our uptime data remains stored indefinitely without expiration ## TLDR – the code Below is an extract of the custom plugin I created: ```php // Schedule the cron job when the plugin is activated register_activation_hook(__FILE__, function() { // Schedule the 'check_uptime_status' event to run every 5 minutes if not already scheduled if (!wp_next_scheduled('check_uptime_status')) { wp_schedule_event(time(), 'five_minutes', 'check_uptime_status'); } }); // Clear the cron job when the plugin is deactivated register_deactivation_hook(__FILE__, function() { // Remove the scheduled 'check_uptime_status' event wp_clear_scheduled_hook('check_uptime_status'); }); // Add a custom cron interval for 5 minutes add_filter('cron_schedules', function($schedules) { // Define a new schedule 'five_minutes' with an interval of 300 seconds (5 minutes) $schedules['five_minutes'] = [ 'interval' => 300, // 5 minutes 'display' => __('Every 5 Minutes', 'uptime-robot-connector') ]; return $schedules; }); // Main function to check the uptime status and update WordPress posts add_action('check_uptime_status', function() { $api_key = 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'; // Uptime Robot API key $uptime_url = "https://api.uptimerobot.com/v2/getMonitors"; // Uptime Robot API endpoint // Make an API request to UptimeRobot to fetch monitor data with a 30-second timeout $response = wp_remote_post($uptime_url, [ 'timeout' => 30, // API request timeout 'body' => [ 'api_key' => $api_key, 'format' => 'json', 'custom_uptime_ratios' => '1' // Request uptime percentage for the last day ] ]); // Check for API errors or invalid responses if (is_wp_error($response) || wp_remote_retrieve_response_code($response) !== 200) { error_log('Uptime Robot API error: ' . print_r($response, true)); // Log the error return; // Exit the function if there's an error } // Decode the API response into a PHP array $data = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body($response), true); // Check if the response contains valid monitor data if (empty($data['monitors']) || !isset($data['monitors'][0]['custom_uptime_ratio'])) { error_log('Uptime Robot API returned invalid data: ' . print_r($data, true)); // Log invalid data return; // Exit the function if data is invalid } // Retrieve the site status from the API response $site_status = $data['monitors'][0]['status']; // Map the Uptime Robot status to custom labels $status_label = match ($site_status) { 2 => 'success', // Site is up 9 => 'outage', // Site is down 8 => 'incident', // Site seems down (store as "incident") 0 => 'unknown', // Site is paused (store as "unknown") 1 => 'unknown', // Site is not checked yet (store as "unknown") default => 'unknown' // Default to "unknown" }; // Retrieve the uptime percentage for the last day $uptime_percentage = (float) $data['monitors'][0]['custom_uptime_ratio']; // Generate today's date in 'dd-mm-yyyy' format $today = date('d-m-Y'); // Check if a WordPress post with today's date as the title already exists $existing_post = get_page_by_title($today, OBJECT, 'post'); if (!$existing_post) { // Create a new post if it doesn't exist $post_id = wp_insert_post([ 'post_title' => sanitize_text_field($today), // Set the post title to today's date 'post_content' => '', // Leave post content empty 'post_status' => 'publish', // Set post status to 'publish' 'post_author' => 1, // Replace with the desired author ID 'tags_input' => [sanitize_text_field($status_label)], // Add the status as a tag ]); // Add the uptime percentage as a custom field if the post was created successfully if ($post_id) { add_post_meta($post_id, 'uptime_percentage', $uptime_percentage); } } else { // If the post already exists, update its tags and uptime percentage $post_id = $existing_post->ID; // Update the post's tags with the new status label wp_set_post_tags($post_id, [sanitize_text_field($status_label)], false); // Check if the 'uptime_percentage' custom field exists; if not, create it if (!get_post_meta($post_id, 'uptime_percentage', true)) { add_post_meta($post_id, 'uptime_percentage', $uptime_percentage); } else { // Update the existing 'uptime_percentage' custom field update_post_meta($post_id, 'uptime_percentage', $uptime_percentage); } } // Calculate the previous scheduled time for the cron job (5 minutes ago) $previous_scheduled_time = wp_next_scheduled('check_uptime_status') - 300; // Subtract 5 minutes // Update the post's modified date to match the previous scheduled time global $wpdb; $wpdb->update( $wpdb->posts, // WordPress posts table [ 'post_modified' => date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $previous_scheduled_time), // Local modified time 'post_modified_gmt' => gmdate('Y-m-d H:i:s', $previous_scheduled_time) // GMT modified time ], ['ID' => $post_id], // Target the specific post ID ['%s', '%s'], // Data types for the values ['%d'] // Data type for the where clause ); }); ```