| Many website hosts advertise their service by | | | | other words, an entire 8-hour day. |
| displaying their uptime guarantee. It comes in | | | | Isn't It Guaranteed? |
| different flavors, but the principle is clear: they | | | | Most web hosting providers offer a money-back |
| promise to keep your website available throughout | | | | guarantee in the event that they are "down" longer |
| the month. If they fail to do so, they violate their | | | | than their uptime agreement allows. This becomes |
| guarantee and you have recourse. | | | | even more confusing for the customer. You should |
| Customers who are new to web hosting may be a | | | | ask the host to clarify what they define as |
| bit confused by the uptime guarantee. That's | | | | downtime. They may only use a PING to determine |
| understandable for a number of reasons. First, many | | | | whether they are "down." If they're not monitoring |
| providers fail to live up to it and then make excuses | | | | the web and mail servers, there is no way to know |
| about extenuating circumstances to the customer. | | | | how much downtime has truly occurred. As such, |
| Second, it is often difficult to identify when outages | | | | there is no way to determine whether the uptime |
| truly happen unless you have installed monitoring | | | | agreement has been violated. |
| software on the server. | | | | Setting Your Expectations |
| Below, we'll explain what the promotional numbers | | | | First, identify your website's busiest hours. You |
| mean and what they imply beneath the surface. We'll | | | | should be able to review your analytics for traffic and |
| also provide an overview regarding what you should | | | | purchase patterns throughout the day. This is |
| expect from your hosting provider. | | | | important. If your host is planning a maintenance |
| Statistics And Lost Minutes | | | | outage on the server (for example, to add a |
| Nearly all hosts offer at least 99.9% uptime. At first, | | | | database patch), you'll want to make sure it happens |
| that seems attractive. Your site will only be | | | | outside of your busiest time. |
| unavailable 0.1% of the month. But, let's translate that | | | | You should also ask your host how often they |
| 0.1% into a number of minutes. Assuming a 30-day | | | | monitor their servers. If they only do so once every |
| month, there are 43,200 minutes. In this case, 0.1% | | | | hour, many smaller outages will never be detected. |
| would equal a bit over 43 minutes. Consider that in | | | | Similarly, find out whether monitoring is performed by |
| the context of operating a successful ecommerce | | | | a third party. If the servers are monitored in-house, a |
| store. Your store might attract thousands of people | | | | wide-scale power failure will prevent their systems |
| each day. As such, a 43-minute outage might | | | | from identifying and recording the outage. |
| translate into thousands of dollars in lost revenue or | | | | When you're looking for a web hosting provider for |
| leads. | | | | your site, consider their uptime guarantee as the |
| Extrapolate that loss over an entire year. If you | | | | beginning of your research, not the end. There are |
| were to lose 43 minutes each month, that would | | | | several points you'll need to clarify with the host to |
| mean you would lose 516 minutes over 12 months. In | | | | ensure that their service is reliable. |