Website Availability: How to Keep Your Website Up and Running Smoothly

You’ve probably heard the saying, “the website’s down.” It’s one of the most frustrating things for business owners and customers alike. When your website is unavailable, it can mean lost sales and opportunities. In this article, we’ll discuss some tips to help you keep your website running smoothly so that you never have to worry about it going down again!

Reasons for Website Downtime

There are many reasons why a website might go down, but some of the most common include:

• Server issues;
• DDoS attacks;
• Maintenance and updates;
• Traffic spikes;
• Outages from dependencies (like third-party services).

Any one of these can cause your website to become unavailable, which is why it’s so important to be prepared. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to keep your website up and running.

How to Keep Your Website Up and Running

Here are a few tips to help you keep your website available:

• Monitoring tools – One of the best ways to ensure that your website is always up, and running is by using monitoring tools. These tools will notify you if your website goes down so that you can take action immediately. For example, you can use website tracker – host-tracker.com/en to track your site performance automatically.
• Backups – Always have backups of your website so that you can quickly restore it if something goes wrong.
• Load testing – Use load testing to ensure that your website can handle high traffic levels without going down. This is especially important if you’re expecting a spike in traffic (like from a sale or marketing campaign).
• DDoS protection – DDoS attacks are becoming more and more common, so it’s important to protect your website with a DDoS mitigation service. This will help stop attackers from taking your website offline.

These are just a few of the things you can do to keep your website up and running smoothly. By taking these steps, you can avoid the frustration of your website going down and ensure that your customers can always access your site.

Website Uptime vs. Downtime

It’s important to understand the difference between website uptime and downtime. Website uptime is the amount of time that your website is available and accessible to visitors. On the other hand, downtime is the amount of time that your website is unavailable. 

For example, if your website is down for two hours in a day, that would be considered two hours of downtime. However, if your website was up for 23 hours and 59 minutes in a day, that would be considered website uptime. 

The goal is to have as much website uptime as possible so that your visitors can always access your site. However, there will always be some amount of downtime due to scheduled maintenance or unforeseen issues. 

By understanding website uptime and downtime, you can better prepare for when your website is unavailable. This way, you can minimize the impact of website downtime and keep your visitors happy.

Use the Monitoring Service

One of the best ways to ensure that your website is always up and running is by using monitoring tools. There are many different website monitoring services available, but we recommend using HostTracker. This service will notify you if your website goes down so that you can take action immediately. 

By using a monitoring service, you can avoid the frustration of your website going down and ensure that your customers can always access your site. You can sign up and get 30 days to test the service for free. Use this opportunity to test host on website host-tracker.com/en/ic or to check the performance of the site itself. You will receive instant notifications of issues, if any, as well as a detailed report.

Website Maintenance

Website maintenance is essential for keeping your site up and running smoothly. During website maintenance, various tasks are performed to improve the performance of your website. For example, updates might be made to the code or content on your site. Or, changes might be made to the server configuration to improve speed and security.

Check the DNS blacklist

DNS (Domain Name System) blacklists are lists of domains that have been identified as spam or phishing sites. If your domain is on a DNS blacklist, it means that your website may be inaccessible to some users.

You can check if your domain is on a DNS blacklist using the Host-Tracker www.host-tracker.com/en/ic/dnsbl-check Blacklist Checker. Simply enter your domain name and click “Check.” If you see a message that says, “No MX records for website.com were found,” then your domain is not blacklisted.

If you do see a message saying that your domain is blacklisted, don’t panic! There are many ways to get removed from a DNS blacklist. You can find instructions for various blacklists here:

• Spamhaus;
• SORBS;
• Barracuda Reputation Block List;
• Project Honey Pot;
• Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic Page.

By taking these steps, you can avoid the frustration of your website going down and ensure that your customers can always access your site. By understanding website uptime and downtime, you can better prepare for when your website is unavailable.

Automatic Back up on the Website

It is important to have an automatic backup system for your website. This way, if something goes wrong with your website, you can restore it to a previous working state. Many WordPress plugins can help you automatically back up your website. We recommend using the UpdraftPlus WordPress plugin. 

UpdraftPlus is a free plugin that will automatically back up your website on a schedule of your choosing. It’s easy to use and configure, and it even has a premium version with additional features.

Endnotes

Website uptime is important for keeping your website running smoothly and avoiding customer frustration. By using a monitoring service and scheduling website maintenance, you can keep your website up and running smoothly. Additionally, by having an automatic backup system in place, you can restore your website if something goes wrong.