Tags for this article: Uptime in Web Hosting, web hosting, web hosting advice
Uptime is nothing but the time that a particular server has stayed up and running. Usually, this is listed as percentage. It is a great measure where the clients will come to know the efficiency of the systems of a web-hosting provider. For any web-hosting provider, the uptime is very important.
There are some problems with grading on uptime
With grading a host, the biggest problem is on their uptime and you will not have independence to verify it. You have to really take the time to verify the host if they tell you that they are providing 100% uptime.
The Uptime guarantees cab be misleading as well
Usually, the uptime guarantees are not the ones that you think. From every other agreement in hosting, unless the hosting agreement is very difficult, the guarantee on uptime works something like this:
The hosting will tell you that, they will guarantee that if the site goes down for more than three hours per month in some unscheduled outages, we will definitely refund the amount of hosting for the amount of time that you have reported that the site was very slow. They tell that the amount will be refunded once the verification is done.
Some of the other Uptime issues
Hardware vs. Software
Uptime is the one that will reflect on how long the machines that are running t he websites will stay up and running. However, the machine can be running and will be working but the website will be down. If the web server software is not maintained properly (software such as databases and PHP) for your website, you have to ensure that the hosting agreement that you sign with the web-hosting provider includes the guarantee for the software running time and hardware time as well.
Who Caused the Problem?
If at all you do something that will lead to the breakdown of the website, you have to look carefully in this matter because not all the agreements will have this term.
Getting Reimbursed
If you have determined that, the website went down with no fault on your side and if it is the fault of hardware crashing other than the software (or the software that was covered in the agreement), getting reimbursement will be very much difficult. Most of the web-hosting providers have hoops that they want you to jump through in order to claim reimbursement. They will probably hoping that you can decide the amount of effort that is put in not worth the reimbursement that you receive from the hosting provider.
Uptime is very Important
Do not be mistaken, having the web hosting service providers that will guarantee the uptime that is much better than others are. However, do not assume that if the hosting provider guarantees you 99.99% uptime so that your website will never go down. What is more likely in this is that, if your site goes down for certain period of time and then you will be reimbursed with the amount for the time that was down.