A website is a very important and powerful tool for any business as that is the face of the business that is accessible to all people worldwide. As designing, adding material and information to a website is extremely important, similarly keeping the website running smoothly and up is also extremely crucial. We live in an interconnected world where we are integrated with informational technologies, and using them properly and to the fullest is the requirement of this world.
Similarly, an always-present website is an absolute necessity that is required by all users these days. If a website does not run properly or smoothly, then that causes a problem. Here comes a term that is known as uptime. Uptime is basically when a website or web page or any web service is available to its users in an allotted period. Usually, the goal is to have a 100% uptime, but that is not physically possible as many issues might occur, so most web hosting providers like SupportHost guarantee 99.99% uptime availability. Unfortunately, this high availability is quite difficult to achieve due to the continuous competition between all the available service providers.
There are multiple ways to calculate this uptime availability, and one of them is discussed below.
How to calculate the uptime percentage?
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In simple words, the website's uptime is the total time minus the downtime, but the majority of the web hosting providers give this information in the form of a percentage. The formula is simple: the ratio of uptime to the total time of the website.
The method is simple and quite easy to calculate. This calculation provides us with the actual availability for a system; it also does not include many factors such as performance or the functions and easily provides us with the complete uptime percentage of the website. Even though websites are usually up and running, there are times when they go down; these reasons for a website's downtime are discussed in the heading below.
Why do websites go down?
There can be many reasons why a website goes down, as many things can cause your website to face the most dreaded downtime. So let's see what those problems are.
The first reason for a website to go down might be that there is too much traffic which means that out of the blue, there are many visitors on your website, which can cause your website to slow down and to go down. However you can easily still have your site up and running even with the large traffic volumes, if the provider you use knows how to handle the situation.
A website can go down due to scheduled maintenances that provide excellent optimization for your web page, but this occurs at off-peak hours, so there is not much negative impact on the website. However, then there is a possibility of hacker attacks which can bring your website down, so having a web hosting service provider that provides complete security from hacks as well as malware and virus attacks is extremely important so that you are not forced to shut off your website to solve the problem.
There are rare cases where web hosting companies are responsible for the unexpected downtimes of the websites. These are due to some data center problems that may occur within your web hosting company, so in such a case, you can monitor the uptime and downtime of your website and decide whether your associated company is reliable or not. Then there is a high chance that there are website code issues as the port programming of a website can cause it to crash and may cause extra heavy load on the website, causing database errors and more. There can be many underlying reasons for your website to go down, so it is better to have a reliable web hosting provider.
Why is uptime important?
We have already discussed the reasons that contribute to the website being down, but why is it important for a website or web page to stay up? Well, here are a few reasons that will show the importance of uptime calculation.
Uptime generally tells for how long your website was up and working, so it is quite important as it tells whether your web hosting service is reliable or not. When we talk about the conventional business stores, we instantly think, what if the store is closed so how we will buy the specific thing? Then we search for alternatives. The same is the case with your website; when your website is down, visitors search for alternative websites. Therefore, keeping your website up continuously, especially at peak hours, is extremely important not to lose your potential buyers and daily website visitors.
Then you can get a penalty from Google; when a website loses its visitors gradually, the Google search engine detects this behavior and penalizes the site ranking, which decreases the search results for the website and till the time this issue is resolved, all of your customers and visitors have already moved on to another more reliable and smooth website. For example, suppose your website is up and running and has a 99.9% uptime. In that case, it will take your brand in a positive light as your website will open whenever the URL is searched, which will make your business reliable, professional and trustworthy in the eyes of your visitors.
So, it is important to have better uptime and a stable website that does not come with issues so that your customers can trust you and your business grows. But what if you still face a downtime issue, so who can solve it? Well, read on to find the answer.
Who can solve this issue?
A web hosting company can easily solve your issues. A web hosting provider can solve your issues because the main purpose of the web hosting company is to provide you with a website that runs smoothly, has great performance, loads fast, and is always up and running. Therefore, if your web hosting company provides you with all the features that will ensure fewer downtimes, your issues regarding the website going down can surely be solved.
A reliable web hosting company is the one that has been in the market for a longer time to know the trends going on; then they should provide you with secured hosting as to avoid downtimes due to hacks and viruses, they should guarantee you satisfaction, allow free website transfer, monitor your website continuously and should provide you with less loading times and a speedy website.
Conclusion
Uptime is simply the time that your website is up and running. The more the uptime of a website, the more that website will be considered reliable, trustworthy, and professional. To have better uptime, you need a professional web hosting provider. A good web hosting provider should provide you with fast hosting services, professional and safe hosting should be available on your every beck and call to solve your queries, should provide you with greater stability and speed, and should improve your website according to the trends so that it grows over time. Hence, uptime and a reliable web hosting service are extremely important for your website, so select a reliable web hosting company.