Causes of website downtime and how to prevent it

Downtime is far more frustrating experience. It can also lead to loss of revenue and critical data. Downtime is the amount of time a website is not able to be accessed by website visitors. How can you prevent downtime? Understanding why downtime occurred in the first place, analyze the impact on your business, and take necessary procautions.
Causes Of Website Downtime
Although it’s often difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of downtime when it happens, there are a number of reasons why downtime occurs. One reason why downtime can occur is when the host provider is performing a planned hardware upgrade, software upgrade, server upgrade, or operating system upgrade. Failure of a particular component can also cause server downtime. As well, file corruptions, defective programs, and application problems can cause downtime. A user error can cause downtime as well as a malicious hacker. One other reason why downtime can occur is if there is a disaster such as a hurricane that causes a power outage.
Impact of Website Downtime
The impact of server downtime can be quite serious. For instance, continuous periods of downtime or long-term downtime can result in loss of customers, loss of sales, and a decreased search engine ranking. It can also result in loss of critical data. It’s essential that a business has a web host that provides optimum up-time backed by a strong SLA.
Preventing Website Downtime
There are a number of measures you can take to prevent website downtime. For instance, you can use a DNS backup service, buy a monitoring system to ping websites regularly and sends alerts about outages, back up data on a regular basis, maintain your current domain name, implement accurate server downtime error codes, implement hacker prevention programs, install antivirus software, and use Google Webmaster tools.
If you are unable to identify the reason for downtime, you should contact technical support. It’s essential to have a web host provider that guarantees maximum up-time and provides 24/7 server monitoring and troubleshooting.