HostGator Servers Go Down but Communication Does Not

On the morning of Saturday the 8th of June, HostGator customers woke up to something unpleasant. Their websites were down. HostGator clients who were also clients of Altera were notified of their website outages. Those who do not have website monitoring service in place were left to find out about their site outages from HostGator themselves. What is surprising is the speed and methods used by HostGator to notify customers of the website outages.

A Website Host on Top of Their Game

We often report when website hosts have servers go down and offer little to no communication about the outage. This was definitely not the case with HostGator Saturday morning. At about 8 AM CST HostGator notified its customers via its Internet forum that their sites were down. They even gave the reason for the outage. The site posted to their Internet forum, "Hello, It appears we are experiencing a network outage to gator688 at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience that this causes. We are working close with the data center at this time to resolve it as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

About two hours later they updated the Internet forum with the following message, "Hello, At this time we are still working with our data center to resolve this issue. We apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause. Thank you for your patience and understanding."

Customers Talking but Not Outraged

The Twitter community was abuzz about the Host Gator outage. Some were saying that the outage could last for a very long period of time and that contingency plans should be put into place, as we've previously advised. Others advised readers that it is important to use an email service other than one connected to your website. All valid points. While HostGator customers were offering advice, there were really no complaints other than the fact that no one knows how long the outage is going to last. That is likely due to the fact that HostGator was on top of communicating about the website outage, but did not indicate when customers could expect services to be back up and running.

What Can You Learn from HostGator's Actions?

First and foremost, this is a perfect example of how communication is key when it comes to website downtime. Notifying customers of downtime and the reason for the downtime is imperative to the reputation of your website. It is also, however, important to inform them of how long the outage is expected to last, if possible. This is something HostGator did fail to do.

You should also take note of the fact that this is indeed a prime example of why you need a backup plan in place when it comes to the hosting of your website and your email communications. Without backup plans in place, you're left at the mercy of your website host and are dependent upon how quickly they can get their services back up and running. With contingency plans in place, the fate of your website downtime is up to you.