If your website is hosted by another company, you probably have some sort of “uptime”
guarantee. Sounds good, but what exactly is uptime and how do you measure
it? That’s the problem.
Uptime can be subjective, hard to monitor,
and when you’re having a problem with it, even harder to prove. Definitions vary widely
by web host but, generally refer to the amount of time in a given period (i.e., day, month,
year, etc ...) in which your web site is supposed to be up and running, serving
up your web pages without fail.
Some type of guarantee or service level agreement generally backs this up. For example,
one web host found on the Internet offers the following:
"…99% Uptime, guaranteed by a refund to any account that is
"down" due to a network issue under our control. We monitor our web
server network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If, for some reason,
there is a server outage - we know it…"
Since this is fairly common, let's think about it. First of all, a 99% uptime guarantee
may be as good as it gets. But, it still means that a site will be down
an average of 3.65 days a year. Worse yet, in our own tests using WebWatchBot,
for this particular hosting company we found an average uptime of only 95%.
Next, there’s the promise, "We monitor our web server network 24 hours a day, 7
days a week. If, for some reason, there is a server outage - we know it."
Sounds reassuring, except if there is an outage, they know it, not you.
Do you really expect to be notified that your site is down and a refund check is
in the mail?
Downtime
What we’re
really talking about here is downtime. Unlike uptime, it’s the amount of time that
your website is NOT serving visitors. The big question is: How do
you know when your site is down? Most web hosting companies won't tell you when
there is an outage, unless it’s scheduled, or for a prolonged period of time.
What about the outages that last for 10 minutes during your busiest time of
day? The effects of an outage can be enormous. Annoyed customers who can’t
reach your site translate to permanently
lost sales. How much will one day of down time cost you?
Allow us to dispel some common myths about web hosting service level agreements.
Myth #1: Your Web Host will inform you when your web site is down
Most web
hosting companies simply don’t have the time or resources to inform you when
your site is down. If your web host
informed you of every outage, their support staff would be so busy notifying
customers they wouldn’t have time to fix the problem.
Myth #2: All Web Hosts have an uptime guarantee
All web-hosting
companies are not created equal. Today most web hosting companies have an
uptime guarantee of 95%, 99%, 99.9% or even 100%, amazingly enough. You should
check with your web hosting company for it’s uptime guarantee, and look closely
at the terms and conditions. Don’t be
afraid to shop around.
Myth #3: Proving downtime is easy
Not only is
proving downtime difficult, it can be a time consuming task. Web hosting
companies have individual policies as to how you prove that your site has a
lower uptime than their guarantee. Some companies require you call or email
when you experience an outage. Others require more proof. It’s not uncommon
to be asked for a screen printout of the errors received.
Myth #4: During an outage, your web host knows about it and is working to resolve the problem
Web sites go
down periodically. Your web hosting company may be aware of the outage, but for
numerous factors, may not be working as quickly as possible to fix the problem.
Some web hosting companies do not have networking monitoring software in place
and only know of outages when customers complain or when their own site goes
down!
Uptime Proof
The best way to
ensure that your site is serving your visitors requires a tool that can
effectively monitor your site. WebWatchBot is perfectly suited to this task. It
can not only inform you when your site is down, it can also inform your web
hosting company's technical support staff that your site is unreachable.
WebWatchBot's reporting capabilities will also provide you with the
documentation you need to prove your website’s true uptime and help keep your
hosting company honest!
