Uptime.com Blog

Five Common Reasons Websites Go Down

Website downtime is frustrating both for the online user and the website owner. Not only does it create mistrust and uneasiness in site visitors/customers, but it can also be costly to the owner in terms of revenue and traffic. Website monitoring services, such as Uptime.com, can be useful in quickly identifying one of the following common causes of website downtime.

1. Coding Errors

When a web developer writes bad code for a website, it can result in downtime for one webpage or an outage of several websites. It can sometimes take millions of lines of code to create one webpage, so numerous opportunities exist for accidental coding errors, such as infinite loops, incorrect syntax and typos.

2. An Expired Domain Name

Domain names are only registered for a limited, prepaid period of time, so a website will go offline if its registration isn’t kept up to date. Site owners should consider using automatic renewal to keep their domain name registrations current.

3. Human Error

Human blunders, such as the unintentional deletion of files, are extremely common and can cause unexpected website downtime. Minimize the consequences of these types of errors by backing up all files for your site and make sure you have a data recovery system in place.

4. Natural Disasters

Severe storms, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding and blizzards, can cause major damage to servers and even entire data centers, consequently leading to website outages.

5. Planned Downtime

It’s necessary for a website and/or its web hosting company to perform routine maintenance from time to time. The website will be offline during this time. It’s important to inform customers of this planned outage in advance by posting a message on your website or sending an email, if possible.

Michael Esposito