subject: Shared Hosting Service Downtime And Outages [print this page] Have your shared hosting been giving you problems lately? Has it been down frequently? Outages are not uncommon when it comes to shared hosting. Why is that?
Understand that on a shared server, there may be hundreds or maybe even thousands of web pages on the same server. That's alright if these sites are smallish and do not compete for computing resources. Unfortunately, as open source software becomes more commonly available, the demands on server resources have raised dramatically.
Compare a 10 page site with only HTML pages with a Joomla Powered site with a blog, a forum, and possibly a membership site. Which web page consumes more resources? The answer is obvious. Yet, both types of sites are allowed to reside on the same server. No fair you say?
Well, that's just the nature of shared hosting. The good news is, most web hosting providers have taken steps to prevent their servers from going down. For scenario, web pages that hog resources may be suspended temporarily until the website owner solves the resource hog problem. If the problem keeps coming back, the site may be terminated on a permanent basis. This is done to protect the other users using the same server.
But what if you own a smallish site and agree that you are not hogging resources? And yet the server continues to go down? What can you do then? Server down time can be very costly. Imagine running a shopping site that makes sales on a daily basis. If it goes down for an hour, that's an hour of lost sales. If it goes down for a day, you have a full day without income. If outages arrise intermittently, it's just downright frustrating.
Here are a few things you can do if you experience server outages.
1) Contact the web hosting company immediately. You can do via live chat, phone, or simply open a support passage. The Tech support should already agree of the outage. Whoever must be responding to the problem.
2) If the issues are not properly rectified, you may ask for a refund or threaten to terminate your hosting account. This should looking you a little attention immediately.
3) If you can't looking anyone to fix the issues, then perhaps it's time to move on. There are a great number web hosting providers out there that offer reliable services at competitive prices. So there is no reason for you to continue using poor quality hosting services.
Here are a little tips on picking the right web hosting.
1) Is it reliable? Be sure to read online reviews from ACTUAL users before signing up.
2) Use a downtime monitoring service to monitor the services for a couple of months or so. If you are not receiving any alerts, that's a a good sign.
3) Finally, since you are a new user, use a coupon to enjoy a discount!
