Blog · 2026-10-13

Ask for a service and we start watching it

How a search like “is netflix down” becomes a monitored service, and the rules that stop junk entering the board.

The box on the front page answers two questions. If we already watch the thing you typed, you get a live reading immediately. If we do not, the search is remembered, the service is found and probed on the spot, and once enough people ask for the same one it is added to the board permanently.

How your words become a URL

A domain you named wins. Type netflix.com or www.bbc.co.uk and that is what gets checked — any ending, any country.
Names we know. A curated list of well-known services (Netflix, GitHub, Zoom, WhatsApp, AWS, ChatGPT, Spotify, Steam, Flutterwave and around 130 more) turns a brand name straight into a hostname, with the longest match winning so "amazon web services" does not become "amazon".
Otherwise we guess, then check the guess. Global endings first (.com, .org, .net, .io, …) then country ones — including .go.ke and .co.ke when the words look local. Every guess is verified with a real request before anything is stored, so the board never claims something we did not check.

The rules that keep junk off the board

Words like "is", "down" and "not working" are never turned into hostnames, so "is it down" cannot become is-down.com. A domain that turns out to be parked or for sale is rejected rather than adopted. A host we already watch is never added twice, and how much the site can add on its own is capped.

Two kinds of addition

A service found from our own curated list can go onto the public board immediately, because a person wrote that list. A hostname we guessed is watched and alerted on straight away but stays off the public board until a human publishes it — the app may teach itself what to watch, but a person decides what the site claims publicly.

If your service is missing

Ask for it again — requests are counted per service, and repeats are what tip a candidate into being watched. If you need one watched now, get in touch and it can be published by hand.