Website Downtime

Troubleshooting your website’s downtime can be a hectic process and one that can overwhelm most people.  Recently I ran into a few people that I had not seen in many years and was able to catch up with them on things.  After a short conversation about personal Life, business, and current endeavors we turned toward the current field of work that I’m into.  An old high school friend of mine referred to me as a “technical” type of individual which actually proved a valid point.  Website downtime happens every once in a while and can cause headache, frustration, and losses for your business.

If you’re one of those individuals that are “non-technical” then this will be a challenge for you to resolve.  Website downtime can be caused by numerous things although these are the ones that your “technical” knowledge if you have any would come in handy.  Don’t worry though as a non-technical individual there are some preliminary steps that you can take in an effort to restore your website presence once again.  The process may involve an interactive chat with your web hosting company or administrator.  In some cases you may even need to get on the phone and exercise your communication skills to ‘Git ‘Er Done’ (truly fascinated by that phrase….not!)

Troubleshooting Your Website Downtime

Make sure you’ve had your morning coffee before tackling this issue.  You’ll need the energy and perkiness, trust me!  If you’re a non-coffee drinker then find a supplement or psych yourself up…whatever works for you.  Here are a few simple steps you can take in an effort to troubleshoot your website downtime.

  1. Visit the website domain in reference and take note of the type of error you’re receiving.  Is it a blank white page?  Broken code? Flagged as virus?  You will need this information when communicating with your web hosting company.
  2. Have you made any recent changes to your website?  Take note of the changes you made if you can recall those.  If you can revert then I suggest that you do so as well.  The next statement follows the magic word… BACKUP! BACKUP! BACKUP!  Issues pertaining to website downtime can be caused by broken code and typically due to the fact that an inexperienced individual has performed work on a particular section of your website.
  3. Contact your web hosting company to state the issue and hope that they will work with you in resolving it.  Keep in mind items 1 & 2 from above prior to communicating with your web host as it will come in handy.  If you have the luxury of engaging with your hosting company via interactive chat and you’re at work I’d suggest doing that.  It may seem less of a headache if you’re not sitting on the headset and waiting for a solution.  On the other hand you may be the type of person that’s comforted by the voice of a technical specialist so calling in would be a better option for you.
  4. Explain the issues at hand to your assigned technical specialist.  Exercise caution and patience here as hard as it may be.  Outline your findings in order to help out with the situation.  Speak plainly with your specialist so they can understand the issue clearly.  Remain calm and provide as much detail as necessary.

Broken websites due to web hosting issues or bad code are not going to fix themselves.  I hate to say this but some people overlook the problem and hope that it fixes itself within a 24 hour period.  That isn’t the case unless your web hosting company’s data center is experiencing an outage.  While it may be very possible and not uncommon it’s up to you as a business owner to take action.

Downtime of your website costs you money.  Get help if you need assistance!