Website Monitoring is Essential for Sites Using Third Party API’s

In the fast paced digital world, to enhance the functionality of a website it’s quite common to integrate with a third party app or service making use of ‘application programming interface’ or APIs.  However, it is the rare online business that thinks about website monitoring services capability to monitor API, when they integrate with third party apps.   

API’s Help Enhance Website Functionality

API is a kind of software that acts like the interpreter which help different independent services interact and interpret the data shared with each other. They allow users to have access to many other web services which essentially adds to the functionality of that website. APIs present a wide range of benefits to site owners. With the help of an API, websites can interact with one another and not only exchange information but also add specific features or functionalities. Currently there are hundreds of free and paid APIs that can assist websites to expand their features and functionalities.  

API Integration Adds the Risk of Enhanced Vulnerability to Website Performance Issues

However, depending excessively on the 3rd party APIs can actually make a site rather vulnerable to malfunction for no fault of that website. The vulnerability is more when a website is using free APIs. Third party APIs are not located on your IT infrastructure. In addition to your app, it is normal for many other apps also to use these API.   When a large number of requests are sent to the servers of those APIs, it results in excessive pressure on the API servers, leading to compromised performance, which negatively affects user experience. Due to failure or degradation of performance of API servers, the business website may display errors and malfunction for their visitors. 

There are many reasons that could cause issues with API servers. Certain events on another website that also uses the same API can cause huge traffic leading to large volume of API calls that degrade performance for your visitors. There can also be other scenarios, for example when an API provider for the sake of boosting their profitability implements an ad server software for displaying advertisements. The ad server implementation leads to extra load on the server and it could impair the speed of the API service. 

API Malfunction Could Lead to Website Downtime and Impaired Performance

It is now common knowledge that malfunctioning APIs can have a negative impact on the overall functioning of that website. Numerous times it has been found that when an API fails to respond properly, the site itself fails to operate the way that it should.  In case the API stops functioning site visitors won’t be able to use that functionality and it could create website errors.  This malfunctioning of the websites functionality causes inconvenience to the website users. This in turn could negatively affect the user experience of visitors to the website, reduce the time they spend on the site or switch to another similar site.

API Monitoring Should be Part of Website Monitoring Service

Accurate and reliable performance of the APIs is necessary as they influence the end-user experience. Therefore when a website is using a third party API, it is necessary to monitor its performance and make sure that it is functioning the way it should.  Errors, outages or other kinds of performance degradation issues with the APIs can cause a bad experience for the users which in turn can adversely impact the online business.

It has to be remembered that when using third party APIs, it is essential to monitor them to ensure smooth functioning of a website. However, not every provider of website monitoring services actually specializes on testing APIs and evaluating their uptime and speed. Therefore, it is necessary to choose a service provider that has considerable experience with identifying malfunctioning APIs. Such site monitoring providers can detect issues with third party APIs and inform about issues in a timely manner. 

Simply Unacceptable to Not Use API Website Monitor Tools 

In the current environment, considering how important it is to deliver the additional functionality offered by API’s to satisfy the visitors, it is simply unacceptable to not do uptime monitoring of the API with a comprehensive site monitoring tool.