What To Do When My Server is Down
You have a managed VPS hosting service, or a managed dedicated server for your business. All seems to go nice and your business grow. But one day, while you go to your site you’ll get only an error page. Your first question is: What happened? Why can’t I reach my website?
Nothing could be worse than when your web hosting service is down. Just think of all the potential customers who would have stumbled on your site, interested in your products and services, but when they upload your site, it comes to nothing but an error message.
Imagine a different scenario: had your website been up and running, these visitors could have translated into paying customers, and that should have meant more income to your pocket.
When you notice that your hosting service is down, don’t panic. Getting anxious will not let you think straight. Instead, take a deep breath, try to stay calm and gather your wits. Then ask yourself, if you have been able to update your payments. It could be that your hosting account got suspended, and theres actually a notification email in your inbox that you haven’t read yet.
If you haven’t deferred your bill payment, then maybe there is just a faulty node that is causing the trouble. Take advantage of traceroute and ping services to check if there is indeed. In this case, the only thing left to do is to wait for the node to come up again.
You may also check if everybody else is having the same problem. The site downforeveryoneorjustme.com has an excellent search tool you can use to see if it s just you having downtime problems or everybody else. If your ISP has connectivity problems, don’t hesitate to inform them to deal with the problem at once.
Perhaps, the reason why your site is down is because there is a scheduled maintenance. Go check your web hosting service’s server status report; any scheduled maintenance jobs should be reflected there. A good way to avoid misunderstanding is to add an email address you use every day. In this case you receive an email from your hosting support, advising you about the scheduled maintenance.
If none of these seems to be the reason why your server is down, it s time to seek action from your web hosting service. Send the company an email at once or get online with a company representative. Now this is where the efficiency of the web hosting service provider is further tested. It should be able to attend to your concerns immediately.
Almost all the good service providers are staffed with efficient and friendly customer representatives, and they should deal with you professionally. The sooner the problem is resolved and your hosting server is up and running again, the better it will be for you and for your business.
So don’t wait, follow these steps as soon as you experience downtime problem.
