A webpage is made up of many elements (or resources), such as images, style sheets, fonts and JavaScript files. Some of the elements loaded on the page are vital for the website to function and to provide a good user experience to the customer. Others, such as marketing and analytical plugins are invisible to the customer, but important to the website owner (if you’re paying for a marketing tool but it’s not working, you’re wasting your money!).

RapidSpike’s User Journey and Page Load monitors automatically check all elements loaded on a page for errors, such as identifying if an element no longer exists, returning a 404 (Not Found) status code:

Errors can also be viewed from the Waterfall tab, which also shows all other elements that make up the page:

If RapidSpike has identified a page element error, we recommend you investigate why the element is failing and either fix the issue or remove the element if it is no longer needed.

But my website still works?

Not all element errors stop a website from working. For example, an e-commerce website may display a small Facebook icon in the footer of the page. If the image is deleted from the server and no longer loading on the page, it won’t stop a customer from buying a product. It is still recommended that the issue is fixed as too many element errors can begin to have a negative performance impact, leading to a poor user experience.