A site typically acts as the virtual shop for businesses and individual brands, linking them with a global audience.

Nevertheless, simply as brick-and-mortar stores deal with periodic closures due to upkeep, sites can likewise experience downtime.

In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the subject of website downtime, discussing what it is and why avoiding it needs to be a leading concern for website owners.
What Is Website Downtime?
Site downtime is a period throughout which a site is inaccessible to users. This is generally due to server overload, hardware failure, or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. When not correctly dealt with, downtime can result in lower online search engine rankings and missed out on opportunities for conversions.

Why Is It Important to Prevent Website Downtime?
Website downtime isn’t simply a technical trouble– it can seriously damage your brand’s trustworthiness and monetary stability.

Think of when site visitors arrive on your website to make a purchase, just to find a 503 service unavailable mistake. They may likely turn to a rival, costing you possible consumers.

This scenario illustrates the unfavorable ramifications of website downtime, that include:

Lost income. The longer your eCommerce store is down, the more prospective sales and profits will be lost.
Reputation damage. Visitors who come across frequent downtime are most likely to lose trust in your brand name. A trusted website is a testament to your professionalism and dedication to user experience.
Lower rankings. Online search engine like Google consider your website’s uptime and load times when figuring out rankings. Regular downtime can result in a lower search position, lowering your website’s visibility.
Security risks. Destructive stars can exploit site downtime, making your site more vulnerable to attacks.
Because of these effects, it’s clear that avoiding your website’s downtime is a crucial element of any service method for long-term success.

10 Key Strategies to Prevent Website Downtime
In this area, we’ll check out 10 reliable best practices for preventing site downtime and guaranteeing 24/7 site access.

1. Select a Reliable Hosting Provider
Selecting a reputable webhosting is essential, as your hosting server straight affects the site’s schedule and general efficiency.

That said, with many hosting companies in the market, you require to be exceptionally mindful when weighing your alternatives.

As a basic rule, try to find the list below aspects before purchasing a hosting service:

Uptime guarantee. Dependable hosting companies keep your site available to visitors at all times. They reduce downtime through routine server maintenance and advanced technologies.
Website speed. Having a sluggish website annoys visitors. Select a webhosting that buys high-speed servers and global information centers so your site can fill rapidly and carry out perfectly.
First-class security. Cyber attacks can cause downtime, information loss, and potential legal problems. A credible hosting service provider ought to execute robust security procedures, safeguarding your website versus all type of hazards.
24/7 support. In case a problem or downtime occurs, hosting service providers must provide responsive assistance through numerous channels, such as email and live chat.
Scalability. As your company grows, scalable hosting plans will assist your site deal with increased traffic without experiencing downtime or efficiency issues.
With Hostinger’s cloud hosting solutions, you will benefit from a well-kept hosting infrastructure, next-generation innovations, and worldwide distributed data centers with a 99.9{41cf1a9bb8ee79c1becd4d580c01685dad0a2b80e933a33c7739ad3ffd70f6db} uptime warranty.

We also employ innovative security measures, consisting of DDoS security, malware scanning, and a web application firewall software, to protect your site from hazards. Plus, each hosting plan includes automated website backups and unlimited complimentary SSL certificates.

If your website experiences mistakes or downtime, our Customer Success team is all set to help at any time.

2. Set Up Regular Backups
Website downtime can lead to information loss for your company and clients, putting your account info, contact information, and deal records at risk.

If consumers are buying or modifying their profiles when your website decreases, they might lose their unsaved modifications. This will lead to lost sales and poor user experiences.

That’s why establishing regular backups is essential for various factors:

Data security. Regular backups keep your website’s information safe. Throughout a cyber attack, server failure, or unexpected removal, you can quickly restore the site to its previous state.
Service connection. Even when experiencing information loss, having backups makes sure that your online store stays functional.
Compliance requirements. Depending upon the market, there might be legal commitments to safeguard client information. Routine backups assist you meet these compliance requirements.
Thankfully, Hostinger users do not require to stress over data loss. Each cloud hosting plan includes automated day-to-day backups, saving you time and effort.

If you wish to save your progress before making significant changes, setting up a manual backup is likewise easy:

Gain Access To the Members Area → Websites.
Select your domain name and click Manage.
On the left menu, scroll down to Files and choose Backups.
Under Generate new backup, click Select, and then Proceed. The procedure may use up to a couple of hours, depending upon the quantity of site information.
The Backups section in Hostinger’s control panel with the option to generate new backup highlighted in red
Hostinger retains your information for a particular period, allowing you to access the backup history and download a website backup quickly.

To restore your website to its previous state, just click Select under Restore website and pick the last backup date.

The backup remediation feature in Hostinger’s control panel
3. Use Monitoring Tools
Tracking tools enable website owners to inspect whether the site is working and take proactive steps to keep an uninterrupted online presence.

Here are a few of the very best tools to monitor your site’s uptime and downtime:

UptimeRobot. This freemium tool checks your website every five minutes and sends instant signals if it decreases.
Pingdom. Understood for its speed screening, Pingdom also uses website tracking with real-time signals.
Site24x7. This detailed monitoring tool provides thorough insights into your website’s performance and offers numerous alert choices.
By hosting your website with Hostinger, there’s no requirement to buy a third-party site monitoring service or tool. We proactively monitor your site and immediately inform you of any performance, server health, and security concerns by means of the control board.

To monitor your website, merely follow these steps:

Log in to your Members Area.
Head to Websites, select your domain, and choose Manage.
From the Dashboard area of hPanel, you can discover the website’s efficiency score and malware scan result. There’s also a tab for spotting plugin and theme vulnerabilities for WordPress sites.
The Dashboard area in Hostinger’s website management panel
Under Performance rating, you can also run load screening and determine your site’s current performance by clicking Run speed test.
Additionally, WordPress website owners can gain from our AI Troubleshooter. When a site returns a 500, 403, or 404 error, the tool will notify the website owner of the mistake cause, assisting them take instant action.

To access this uptime tracking feature, just select WordPress → AI Troubleshooter on the left menu.

The AI Troubleshooter function in Hostinger’s control board
4. Optimize Website Performance
When a great deal of users visit your website, the server needs to work harder to process requests, generate pages, and serve content. As the server ends up being overloaded, it can lead to slower site speed and, in some cases, crashes.

While not a direct reason for site downtime, optimizing your site for speed is still crucial for a better user experience. This includes compressing images, minifying code, and leveraging web browser caching.

Hostinger comprehends the significance of website optimization tools in preventing website interruptions and providing perfect efficiency.

That’s why our cloud hosting plans are powered by the industry-leading LiteSpeed caching system. We also provide solid-state drives (SSDs) for faster data retrieval and a global material delivery network (CDN) to improve loading times.

These functions work collectively to ensure your site runs at peak performance, minimizing the opportunities of downtime. Having a fast-performing website is likewise crucial for seo (SEO), as page speed is one of Google’s ranking factors.

5. Implement Security Measures
Malicious attacks been available in numerous types, and they all pose a substantial hazard to your site’s overall uptime:

DDoS attacks overwhelm your website with traffic, straining server resources and causing website crashes.
Phishing efforts and social engineering plans frequently result in information breaches. Beyond compromising user trust, sometimes they also trigger the webhosting to take your website offline momentarily.
Malware infections can interrupt crucial site performance. In most cases, it requires the elimination and comprehensive clean-up of jeopardized components, usually leading to website downtime.
To alleviate these dangers and maintain a safe site, it’s necessary to perform routine audits and downtime avoidance strategies.

If you do not have the technical abilities, choose a managed hosting company that provides automatic security features like Hostinger.

Here’s how we secure your website against different risks:

Web Application Firewall. It filters incoming traffic to block malicious requests, only permitting legitimate users to pass through.
Malware scanner. We automatically discover and eliminate destructive code from your website database.
Free SSL certificate. Our hosting services featured unrestricted free SSL certificates, guaranteeing protected data transmission between your server and users’ internet browsers.
DDoS protection. By getting rid of bad bots and malicious stars, our system enables you to deliver a continuous surfing experience.
Login security. To prevent brute-force attacks and unauthorized access, we utilize two-factor authentication when users log in to their hosting account.
6. Handle Traffic Spikes Effectively
Traffic management is vital to prevent downtime, specifically throughout periods of increased user activity.

To handle peak traffic much better, perform these site uptime techniques:

Track website visitors. Use tools like Google Analytics to examine your website’s performance and traffic patterns, so you can anticipate upcoming rises. Travel companies might anticipate peak traffic during the holiday season.
Enhance database. Remove unnecessary files from your database and use indexing to speed up inquiries. This will ensure effective information storage and retrieval, resulting in quicker loading times.
Screen hosting resources. Make sure your hosting plan has adequate resources to deal with traffic spikes. This is specifically important when using shared hosting, a service where one dedicated server hosts multiple websites.
Enable caching. This technique stores static material like images and stylesheets on users’ gadgets, lowering the need for repeated server demands.
With Hostinger’s scalable hosting plans, you can quickly update your resources as needed.

If you’re not ready to purchase a higher plan, we also have a short-lived enhancing option. This function permits you to increase your strategy’s limits for 24 hours.

Another standout feature is item caching for WordPress, which briefly stores regularly accessed database questions or objects. The next time a user demands information, our server can obtain it much faster. This method can improve site performance and reliability by as much as 3 times.

7. Arrange Routine Maintenance
Ensuring website uptime is a procedure that needs continuous tracking. Do not wait on a failure or crash to occur– routine checks and updates can help prevent downtime and keep your website running efficiently.

To stay on track, create a website upkeep plan and establish a routine schedule. Depending upon your website’s complexity, this can be weekly, regular monthly, or quarterly.

Pro Tip
Before making any modifications, perform a complete site backup. This ensures that you can restore your website to its previous state if something fails throughout upkeep.

Then, follow these detailed maintenance strategies for constant site operation:

Assess your site’s efficiency and overall health. Recognize areas that require attention, such as sluggish loading times or security vulnerabilities.
Update your material management system (CMS), plugins, styles, extensions, and any other software your website runs.
Conduct a speed test using third-party tools like PageSpeed Insights or directly via Hostinger’s control panel.
Perform comprehensive website security audits to determine and remove risks.
After making any changes, look for damaged links, missing out on images, formatting errors, or any other issues that might occur while you perform upkeep.
Keep in-depth records of the maintenance tasks you’ve carried out, including the dates and descriptions of the modifications made. This paperwork can be valuable when carrying out maintenance and site troubleshooting in the future.
If your maintenance leads to momentary server downtime, create a dedicated landing page to inform visitors of the set up upkeep and expected duration.

8. Stabilize the Traffic Load
Load balancing is one of the most effective techniques to maintain website schedule. It refers to the distribution of website traffic across multiple servers or resources, avoiding server overload.

You require a hosting supplier with an international server network to accomplish this. This is another advantage Hostinger users can take pleasure in– our information centers are tactically located throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.

The infographic showing the areas of Hostinger’s Data Center worldwide
Integrated with our in-house CDN option, you have the tools to ensure your website’s uptime. If one data center encounters problems or ends up being overloaded, our system will automatically route traffic to a backup area, keeping your site online.

9. Set Up Secure Themes and Plugins
Themes and plugins make it possible for WordPress users to add more performance and design aspects to their website, making it more attractive and user-friendly.

Using out-of-date styles and plugins can compromise your site’s security. By exploiting their vulnerabilities, hackers can gain access to your site’s back end, causing information theft and a possible site blackout.

To guarantee maximum security, follow these tips before setting up a WordPress style or plugin:

Download from respectable sources. Obtain themes and plugins from the official WordPress directory or relied on markets like ThemeForest. Beware of complimentary themes and plugins from unverified platforms.
Check out evaluations and scores. Online reviews can provide insights into a style or plugin’s security and general performance.
Look for routine updates. Make certain your selected styles and plugins have actually received updates within the last six months. Designers who actively maintain their products are more likely to attend to security concerns without delay.
Test before utilizing. For added safety, develop a staging environment to run security scans and compatibility tests without affecting the live production website.
When you no longer need a theme or plugin, uninstall it. Posturing security risks, inactive styles and plugins take in server resources, which can slow down your website.

10. Develop a Disaster Recovery Plan
Even after employing all the strategies for avoiding downtime, unforeseen security occurrences can still take place.

This is why creating a catastrophe healing strategy (DRP) is necessary to secure your website information. Here’s how:

Determine vital assets and risks. List all vital properties of your organization, consisting of information, hardware, and software application. Recognize possible risks and dangers such as server failures, cyber attacks, natural disasters, and human errors.
Set healing objectives. Specify your recovery time objective (RTO) for how quickly systems need to be restored, and healing point goal (RPO) for the acceptable data loss in case of an incident.
Assemble a catastrophe recovery team. Appoint particular roles to each member, including a DRP planner, IT personnel, and interaction intermediaries. Train your team and make certain everyone understands their responsibilities.
Establish healing methods. Focus on risks based on severity and potential repercussions. After that, produce detailed treatments to reduce each danger scenario.
Back up your information. Execute automated backups of crucial information and systems. Shop them in safe locations to avoid information loss throughout catastrophes.
Routinely upgrade the plan. Continually adjust your DRP based upon progressing technology, threats, and company needs. Identify weak points and areas for improvement, then modify the plan accordingly.
Create documents. Keep all aspects of your DRP, consisting of contact details, procedures, and recovery methods, in one comprehensive document. Make sure it’s quickly available to the DRP team.
What Causes Website Downtime
From hardware failure to cyber attacks, here are a number of factors that trigger sites to crash:

Server Problems

When a server decreases, all sites hosted on it will be not available to users. There are 2 main reasons for a server outage:

Hardware side. These consist of disk drive failures, unsteady power products, overheated CPUs, and aging parts.
Software side. It can be connected to software application glitches, damaged running systems, inadequate RAM storage, incorrect setups, and database issues.
Software Update Errors

Software updates are essential for maintaining security and performance. Nevertheless, during the upgrade process, mistakes might happen due to compatibility issues, improper setup, or disputes with existing software application.

Traffic Spikes

Often caused by sudden boosts in visitor numbers, traffic surges can overwhelm your server’s resources. If your hosting infrastructure can’t manage these spikes, your site will slow down or perhaps end up being inaccessible.

Security Breaches

When hackers gain unauthorized access to your website, they can interrupt services, damage websites, or steal information. Protecting your site with robust security measures, such as firewalls and two-factor authentication, is essential to prevent these events.

DDoS Attacks

In this case, aggressors use botnets or networks of compromised devices to create an enormous increase of traffic. The goal is to overwhelm the server and make your website unattainable. That’s why robust DDoS countermeasures, like those provided by Hostinger, are vital for reducing these attacks and safeguarding against site downtime.

Conclusion
Businesses depend on websites to reach online audiences and offer their products worldwide. Nevertheless, server problems, traffic spikes, and DDoS attacks can trigger sites to crash, interfering with operations.

By carrying out the website maintenance best practices talked about in this article, you can maintain site availability and uptime. Here are some of the most essential website durability steps:

Select reputable webhosting for high uptime and faster load times.
Establish regular backups to avoid information loss during website downtime.
Screen your website and schedule routine maintenance to ensure superior efficiency and security.
Manage huge traffic spikes by stabilizing the load throughout several servers.
Create a catastrophe recovery strategy in case unanticipated events take place.
Bear in mind that site downtime mitigation is a continuous commitment. Even when everything works fine, these website reliability suggestions will help you deliver a smooth browsing experience.