Restoring Website Uptime from The 4 Common Causes of Downtime

Internet users expect a website to show instantly whenever they click on a link to your site or type the URL. Most of the users expect a website to take less than two seconds to load completely. If the visitors face a delay they may abandon your site and use the browser and search engines to find another similar website. If you are an e-Commerce site, you may lose out on potential sales revenue.

Leave website downtime, today’s impatient visitors will not even tolerate a slow performing website. It the duty of the website owners and website admin like you to ensure the site is up and performing with good speed. Let’s see some of the common causes that cause your website to go down.

Slow or Unreliable Web Hosting Service

One of the most common reasons behind website downtime is a slow or unreliable web hosting service. If you are using traditional hosting, it is possible that you opted for the hosting provider many years back and your site is hosted on an old low performance computer. There are many reasons for the subpar performance of the webhosting service ranging from infrastructure, technical competence to poor organizational health.

If your web host is not proper, the hardware will not be in order or the servers will be overloaded. In fact, a reliable web host leaves no stones unturned to prevent downtime. So, there is no point in investing in newer website design and digital marketing efforts, if your web host is not up to the mark.

The simplest way to resolve the issue is to audit your web hosting plan and service provider. If needed change the plan or the provider. A resourceful and reliable web hosting provider will enable you to deal with the server side problems and in addition to that also provide technical support when needed. Choose a provider who excels in providing quality web hosting service.

Experiencing Higher Traffic Load

If your website is getting heavy traffic from target audiences you are extremely lucky. But, when too many people visit your website at once, the site may crash. Once you choose a certain web hosting plan, your website is able to only handle certain amount of traffic at a time. If the traffic is more than what the web server can handle then your visitors experience a non-responsive site.

The way to resolve this issue is to audit your web hosting service, understand how much load it could support. Anticipate boost in traffics especially during peak times and evaluate if your current hosting plan can support such expected boost in traffic. If your current plan cannot support the peak volume, then upgrade your hosting plan. Make arrangements with the hosting provider in order to ensure that during peak traffic when your web server is overloaded then the redundancy hosting options are activated. When redundancy hosting is properly done, this ensures the large volumes of visitors to your site experience a fast performing website.

Malware Attacks

Spike in traffic does not always mean that your website has suddenly become popular. The visitors you are receiving can be scam bots or virus software. They are trying to break into and get the admin access of your website. Such hacking attempts can mess up your website and make it very slow or even completely unavailable.

The way to resolve the downtime issue caused by malware is to first update the software on the webserver. Ensure you are using the latest stable versions of the software as they have bug fixes for the various security issues including malware attacks. Also, don’t make mistakes like allowing random visitors to upload any file to your site. Some websites allow visitors to upload .exe files using their contact us response form. These sorts of risky practices should be avoided during site design and development.

Extension/Plugin Errors

Content management, CRM or e-Commerce software is used to the run many websites. To these software applications functionality is enhanced using plugin and extensions as add-ons. In simple terms, these let your website have features that are originally not a part of the application. The problem with these plugins or extension is that, they are made by third party. Either they are not stable or not updated. When such plugins exist on your site, the whole website may experience downtime.

There are some ways to deal with this situation. Firstly, read the release notes before installing the plugin or updating the version of the software that runs your website. You need to verify if they have documented support for the version you have on your website. Ensure you do this for the plugins as well as the main software application. It is also a good idea to read the forums and checkout there no issues reported by others for extension or plugin. Another effective way is to have a test site local webserver or even on a sub-folder on your hosting plan. Install the extension or plugin on the test site and check if it is causing any issues. Another very useful method is to take backup of the website before installing the software updates; if any issues happen then the site can be restored from the backup. As you may have realized from the information so far, the key is to avoid recklessness and proceed with software installations in a careful and measured manner.

Well, 100% uptime cannot be ensured. But, adopting certain measures to deal with these problems can improve the availability percentage statistics of your website. The idea is to avoid unnecessary downtime caused by poor organization, carelessness and recklessness.

Monitoring Service is a Key Tool to Ensure Continuous Uptime

A website monitoring service is a very useful and important tool that enables you to not only deliver continuous uptime but also to ensure the site is providing great experience to the visitors by responding speedily. There are many monitoring services available both free and premium to monitor your site and send alerts whenever the website goes down. However, the functionality could be basic or advanced and the service providers come in all ranges of reliability. It is essential to choose a quality website monitoring service to support the success of your website. In most cases, a suitable option may be a paid website monitoring service. The small fee for a site monitoring service is very worthwhile investment.