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Monitor Your Web Site for Downtime
For those in the Internet business the availability of
their web site is a major concern. The cost of downtime
for web businesses can amount to $10,000 an hour. And this
is without counting the losses caused by missed opportunities
and lost sales. Losses in image and credibility these businesses
suffer because eventual downtime is even harder to quantify.
Many of today's web hosting providers offer 99% uptime
for their web servers. If you have already chosen one or
if you are planning to use one with such a high uptime should
you be concerned on the whole matter anyway?
Let's see how much 99% uptime means. For a 30-day month
you have a total of 720 hours. 99% of this is 712.8 hours.
Are you comfortable with your web site taking a day off
every month? And this if 99% uptime happens. Can your web
hosting provider back up its uptime promises with real facts?
How can you tell that?
For companies making business online it might seem a good
idea to move their Internet operations in-house. They develop
their own infrastructure, hire specialized personnel, only
to keep their business online. The cost of such an enterprise
would seem rather high for the ones seasoned in the Internet
business. Why? Because of the high cost implied: around
$20,000 a year, without even thinking of the logistical
burden.
The best way to avoid that while ensuring your business
is online is to have monitoring reports available on your
web host's uptime.
For companies or individuals having their web hosting providers
monitored by a third party is a guarantee not only that
their money is well spent, but also, an most importantly,
that their Internet business is up and running.
Having their services monitored by a third party is beneficial
even for the web hosting providers. That is serious web
hosting providers. Offering reports of their uptime monitored
by a third party and placing links to them on their home
page is bound to boost the confidence of existing customers
as well as the one of the prospecting customers in the quality
of service that host is providing for its customers.
This is a not only a great marketing tool, but also translates
to very good customer relationship. This is vital to web
hosting providers as the cost of attracting a new customer
is from 5 to 10 times higher than the cost of retaining
an existing customer.
Having monitoring reports, even better if they are provided
by a third party, available on the host's web site is sure
to reduce the burden on the technical support center. Many
calls to technical support centers from customers regard
dial-up problems such as slow connection, download times,
web site accessibility or various computer issues that are
often related to the personal computer of the customer rather
than are problems on the host's side. This is why the number
of calls to the tech support center could be reduced up
to a third simply by posting the monitoring reports on the
hosting provider's web site or by simply providing a link
to them.
As shown above, when talking about downtime problems the
stakes are high in the Internet business. Disputes regarding
the uptime will never be missing between the web hosting
provider and its customers, and their resolution is almost
every time a delicate issue. This is why independent monitoring
provided by a third party can make the resolution of these
disputes much easier for the conflicting parties.
Having a web host that provides monitoring of its uptime
by a third party is the best guarantee that you can get
for your web site's uptime. With such level of service you
can be sure that the money you are spending for your web
presence can give your or your company the best return of
investment.
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