Do You Really Know If your Business Is Online 24/7
99.99% uptime actually means that your website is online 364 days, 23 hours, 7 minutes, and 26.4 seconds of the year. So within an entire year your website shouldn't have more than 53 minutes unaccounted for. This is actually a very good server uptime. If your business website isn't getting 99.99% uptime you might consider finding another web host, because for every 0.01% uptime you loose there is almost an entire hour when your customers cannot reach your business.
When you are running a business online it is important to consider your opportunity cost. Cheap web hosting comes at an opportunity cost of lower grade servers, shared bandwidth, poor DNS response times, and possibly bad customer service. These factors are critical to any online business, because you 'NEED' to stay in touch with your customers 'all the time'.
Your online business can't afford to loose server uptime or run into unfortunate billing issues with your web host due to incompetence or lack of professionalism. As a business owner, it's my job to make sure my business is online and running smoothly 24/7.
If my ads are running on Google and a potential customer happens to click on that ad at a time when my website is down, it would be a loss to my business, because not only am I charged for the ad, but I'm left with no way to convert the CT to a customer.
So to make sure I am protecting my business interests as best I can -- I first took the time to search for a quality web hosting service that I could learn to trust and deal with in the future. I reviewed their customer testimonials, made sure they were well establish, and I even gave their customer support center a "test call" as they so daringly tempted on their website. Not only was I treated nicely and given prompt and informative answers to all my questions, but they were able to get my website up and fully functioning within just 20 minutes of placing the order online.
While I continued to check the server logs and follow up with my administrator, I was extremely impressed by the sheer honesty of the provider. However, it's not enough to gather all your information from one source. So accordingly I also use an additional third party service that ensures the monitoring and protection of my websites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I'm presented with detailed daily statistics on everything from user browsing experience to all the technical aspects of my server. Even critical and non-critical errors -- such as unresponsive DNS, broken links, hacker attacks, unauthorized updates, etc.. -- can be sent to me, my web host, or ISP by phone, fax, or email immediately upon detection. The monitoring service even checks my website for accessibility every 5 minutes from different locations around the world.
My web host and I are always informed of any problems, apparent or otherwise, and swift action can be taken to quickly resolve them on the spot. That way I'm on top of my business 24/7 and can have a peace-of-mind about how my customers will see my business.
Read Business-Geek.com's free small business guides online to learn more about small business online and find affordable small business services for your small busines startup!
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