What is Web Hosting Uptime and Downtime? How to Ensure Your Website’s Availability

Anytime people talk about peaks and valleys figuratively it means that they’re talking about things being either at their best or at their worst. Whereas figuratively for ups and downs it’s either feeling like you’re on top of the world, or down in the dumps. And then literally it is going mean binge higher than any point or lower than it. Everyone knows what it means to go up and down, and they’ll also know that what goes up must come down. When we discuss reliable hosting in Canada here and they types of uptime guarantees you should get from a web hosting provider it means the probability of a website being unavailable on the Internet.

The standard 99.9% means that probability is less than 0.01%, and that’s our website uptime guarantee here at 4GoodHosting. As will be the case with most other reliable web hosts in Canada. The fact we have data centers in Vancouver and Toronto for both sides of the country is in large part what makes us one of the better choices if you’re looking for this type of reliability plus a consistently fast loading homepage for your business, Something that is important if it’s a business website and serves to introduce you to potential new customers who can be finding your competitors just as easily.

That’s a good roundabout introduction to what is web hosting downtime and uptime, but what we’ll do with this week’s blog entry is explain the whole thing in a little more detail. This is something you’re not going to have any control over and nothing that you do within your cPanel controls for your website is going to factor into whether your website is up. DDoS incidents are always going to be more common for websites that are on a shared hosting arrangement, but there should still only be the slimmest of slim chances it ever happens, and for most websites with a good web hosting provider it never happens al all.

Just Can’t Happen

You will probably also know that having consistent uptime contributes to good website SEO.

Uptime is also known as website availability and it is really needed for all websites and online business owners. This key factor measures how long a website is accessible and operational to users, which is why it is so crucial. When potential new customers click through to go your site they’re going to expect to see it pop up on their screen at least relatively quickly, and if that doesn’t happen and they see any type of message that the URL they’re trying to get to isn’t available then they’re not likely coming back for a second look.

The best way to achieve customer satisfaction is by offering a fast, clean, and organized website where customers can find everything they need and buy what they want quickly. Along with fast-loading web page it is also also true that user experience is also at the forefront of website design and functionality. When a site is unavailable, even for a short amount of time, it can lead to significant frustration and disappointment among customers. The importance of uptime to user experience is central to reliable hosting in Canada and runs deeper than what we mentioned above.

People expect a website to function properly and want to be making their way through pages and products in seconds. Any extended downtimes or unavailability will cause these would-be customers to lose trust in your site, while consistent uptime fosters a sense of reliability and trustworthiness, which are going to be needed if you want a loyal customer base.

Downtime will mean that not only are new visitors not being introduced to you and what you have to offer in the way of products and / or services, but it also means that existing customers aren’t going to be completing purchases, making bookings, or placing orders for any extended period of time. Then there’s also the issue of preventing customers who have placed orders from being able to track their orders or access your customer support page. There are so many different undesirable possibilities here and long story short you just can’t have your website being down. You need the best hosting with 99.99% uptime in Canada

You need to consider the way today’s fast-paced world is full of AI assistants, smart technology, and 5-second-long TikTok videos too. This makes people increasingly impatient and expectant and it doesn’t take much to have their attention taken away from them. A homepage that doesn’t load is going to be dismissed right quick and if the site is unavailable it’s not even going to even open at all. With a website uptime guarantee you can be certain people can access your site whenever they want, increasing the likelihood of repeat visits and long-term engagement.

Impact on SEO

We mentioned how good SEO is also dependent on uptime and search engines like Google, Bing, and FireFox prioritize websites that offer a reliable and positive user experience and will see them more favorably if the site is consistently up and available to visitors. They push the pages that fit the bill higher in their searches, offering more visibility. You want the Best hosting with 99.99% uptime in Canada at all times, and here’s other ways that uptime or downtime can either add or subtract from your site’s SEO value.

  1. Search engine crawling - Google and other engines will have bots crawling and indexing pages. If a site is down with any type of regularity then the bots are less likelyl to access the site and index its content effectively. A lack of indexing means worse ranking or no ranking at all.
  2. Bounce rate - people need to be able to first get into a website and THEN leave in order to contribute to a bounce rate. But the sum effect is the same if your website is down and people who want to shop your online store aren’t able to even enter in the first place - worse SEO for a website and lower rankings in search results.
  3. Page load speed - slow loading times can be just as detrimental as downtime. Search engines consider page load speed a ranking factor, and slow speeds will take away from your SEO standing. Reliable website uptime will give you the page load speed you need to rank better.

There’s also a business and operational impact to this too, and it will be something to keep in mind too with the need for reliable hosting in Canada. Companies are going to rely on their websites for sales, customer support, and brand communication and recognition, which are clearly so important for the success of a business. Having good uptime will ensure that all of those factors are optimized to function to their fullest potential, allowing businesses to have their website contributing to their success as they’d hoped for. Brand reputation and recognition may be at stake to some extent too depending on the size of the business and if it’s well established.

Role of Hosting Providers

The web host you choose to go with is going to be pretty much everything when it comes to whether or not you can expect to have the type of website uptime you need. They’ll need to have the infrastructure and resources for your website to perform well if they’re going to be able to promise reliable hosting in Canada. Start by understanding that any provider with data centers that are outside the country will be much slower than the one that utilizes data centers in Vancouver and Toronto for Canadian websites like we do.

Dig for that information on their website along with checking their uptime guarantee and that it’s above 99% as is the standard. Look to see that they have hex-core servers too and other technologies the provider offers. That’s pretty much all there is to say about this and uptime and downtime are two of the most important factors that affect a website’s availability. The percentage of time that a website is online and functioning, and any percentage of time where there is a possibility it might not be. Make sure you’re getting that uptime guarantee of 99.9% and you’ll be best set up to maximize your efforts and not be losing out on sales due to errors, unavailability, or slow speeds. Experiencing downtime? Call now for instant support.

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