{"id":19197,"date":"2019-02-11T20:58:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T20:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comparakeet.com\/?page_id=19197"},"modified":"2019-04-16T14:30:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T14:30:09","slug":"what-is-uptime","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/comparakeet.com\/best-web-hosting-reviews\/what-is-uptime\/","title":{"rendered":"Up All Nines: What is Uptime and Why Does It Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Picking the best web hosting provider<\/a> is often a numbers game – you compare prices, storage space, bandwidth, and so on–numbers, numbers, numbers. But there’s one number that web hosts like to highlight, and it’s the only one you’ll ever find on the large guarantee seals on their websites: Uptime, often at 99% or more. If you believe the marketing speak, this is the only number you need to be sure that your website is in good hands. And the more “nines” in there, as people in the industry might tell you, the better.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of 365itsolutions.com<\/p><\/div>\n

But is that all there is to it? If you’ve ever wondered what uptime is or why you should care about it, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll look at what uptime means for website owners like you and give you some tips for evaluating those tricky, legalese-stuffed service-level agreements (SLAs).<\/p>\n

What is Uptime?<\/h2>\n

Simply put, uptime is a measure of reliability. When it comes to web hosting services, uptime tells you what fraction of your web host’s operating hours are incident-free. That’s why uptime typically comes as a percentage, and that’s also why web hosting providers like to crow about an abundance of nines, from 99% all the way up to 99.999%+. A number close to 100% indicates that a web host’s servers are up almost all the time — and that means your website will be, too.<\/p>\n

Uptime is a quick way to gauge if you’re getting your money’s worth, too. If a web host guarantees you a certain uptime percentage upfront, then you’ll know what level of availability and performance you can expect from any website you host with them. Since you can verify that promise by doing the math, it’s easier to hold your web host provider accountable.<\/p>\n

The Fine Print: Delving into Uptime<\/h2>\n

That brings us to some of the shakier dimensions of uptime: How exactly do you do the math?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, nobody certifies the figures that web hosting providers give for their uptime. Since it’s a measure of performance over time, covering the web host’s services for possibly millions of websites, there’s no way for you to check their general numbers for yourself, either. At least to start with, you’re going to have to trust that these web hosting providers are giving you reliable stats.<\/p>\n

When Does Uptime Matter?<\/h2>\n

Most web hosts promise you at least 99% uptime. That looks good enough, right? 99% is a nice, high number, and it’s close enough to 100% if you’re counting.<\/p>\n

The Cost of Downtime<\/h3>\n

Image courtesy of meetnomo.com<\/p><\/div>\n

But let’s remember that uptime measures incident-free operational hours. At 99%, that means you can expect a potential 1% of downtime, and that’s if the numbers don’t end up as underestimates. If 1% doesn’t sound like a lot, consider: that’s 14.4 minutes in a day, or 87.6 hours\u2014nearly four days!\u2014that your website could be down in a year.<\/p>\n

Just think how many visitors or customers you’d lose in those 80+ hours that can’t get to your website.<\/p>\n

That cost isn’t just in direct sales, either. Even if your site isn’t down for days at a time, you could still lose customers. Let’s say it’s just one hour each day, for seven days. In the same way that you’d switch web hosting providers if your website keeps crashing on their watch, your visitors are likely to stop coming if they get frequent (if minor) problems with your website. Would you trust a company if you can’t even be sure they’ll be working properly when you visit?<\/p>\n

In short, downtime costs you two main things: opportunity and trust. Put that way, 1% can matter a lot.<\/p>\n

The Cost of Uptime<\/h3>\n

Image courtesy of techonsite.com<\/p><\/div>\n

That said, don’t go chasing after those nines above all else. When it comes to web hosting, hunting down ideals like “99.999%” (or the “five nines” if you want to use industry-speak) can get very costly, very quickly. It’s not entirely implausible to have another “0” tacked onto the end of your total hosting costs for every “9” you add to “99.99%”, for example.<\/p>\n

Besides, more nines don’t automatically make for a better web host overall. After all, no server works 100% of the time, so the occasional blip is unavoidable. You’ll have to ask yourself how important it is to minimize <\/em>those unplanned blips, and how much you’re prepared to spend for that. Yes, outages are costly and inconvenient, but it’s often better to spend your money on a plan that supplies more of the resources your website needs, rather than simply getting a plan that comes with an extra “nine” of uptime.<\/p>\n

All other things being equal, an extra fraction of a\u00a0percentage usually isn’t worth a massive jump in your monthly fees.<\/p>\n

So what uptime percentage should you look for?<\/h2>\n

In general, 99.5% guaranteed <\/em>uptime is a good minimum. If you can get good guarantees for higher uptimes without having to pay an extra limb for your hosting plan, then go for it.<\/p>\n

Wait, What’s a Good Guarantee?<\/h2>\n

Not all uptime guarantees \/ service-level agreements (SLAs) are created equal. Okay, so almost all of them are giant blocks of text that are hard to parse. But here are the questions you should ask.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of thewebmaster.com<\/p><\/div>\n

What gets covered?<\/h3>\n

Most web hosting providers will only cover unscheduled downtime caused by problems on their end, and only if the downtime passes a certain threshold.<\/p>\n

Let’s say you’ve been guaranteed 99.5% uptime. That 0.5% of possible downtime amounts to 3.6 hours per month. With most hosting providers, you can expect compensation only if downtime hits or exceeds that number. So if your website happens to go down for a total of, say, 3 hours and 15 minutes for that month, you won’t get any reimbursements.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of mir3.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The same is likely true for any scheduled <\/em>outages. Most servers, at one point or another, will need to go offline for maintenance. Your web hosting provider will usually inform you beforehand, but that doesn’t save you from any complications that might arise during the maintenance process. Check your web host’s service-level agreement (SLA) carefully. If planned downtime goes on for longer than expected, you might not be able to secure a reimbursement, either.<\/p>\n

Some providers set out separate guarantees for downtime caused by issues with the network, software, or server hardware. This is great because you get explicit protection for downtime regardless of the nature of the problem on your provider’s end. Some SLAs aren’t as clear-cut, so you might find yourself denied of a reimbursement just because your server was up and running even while problems with your provider’s network kept your website out of commission.<\/p>\n

What compensation can you expect?<\/h3>\n

Most providers will compensate you with a certain amount of account credits. Usually, you’ll either get the reimbursement credited to your account, or the equivalent amount will be taken off next month’s fees.<\/p>\n

You should look at how much you’ll get. Some providers are generous enough to credit a full month’s fees if you qualify; others will give you pro-rated credits depending on how long your website was down. Note that most providers will only reimburse hosting<\/em> costs, so don’t expect your web host to pay you back the sales you might have lost while your website was down.<\/p>\n

How do you get reimbursed?<\/h3>\n

Many hosting providers won’t automatically dole out reimbursements. This means you’ll have to file a claim yourself, providing all the details — including the amount of downtime you’re seeking compensation for. If you want accurate reimbursements, you’ll often need a way to monitor your website’s availability around the clock to be able to pinpoint when downtime occurs and how long it lasts.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of blog.iil.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s the bottom line.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Downtime can be a costly affair, and the compensation plans outlined in your hosting provider’s SLA acknowledge that. However, you can’t expect a hosting provider’s SLA to make up for all the money you might lose in the event of downtime. If an hour’s outage lost you $500 in potential sales, your provider will not pay that back — the most you can hope for, really, is a fraction of your hosting fee, which will likely amount to less than $10.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the value of an uptime guarantee lies more in the promise of reliability that it represents rather than in the actual amount you might get back.<\/p>\n

Which Web Hosts Rank Best for Uptime?<\/h2>\n

Okay, okay, <\/em>you might be saying, this is all good information, but which web hosts should I be using?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When it comes to uptime, gauging a web hosting provider’s performance can be tricky. As we mentioned earlier, there are no quick, standardized ways to rate a web hosting provider’s reliability. Fortunately, there are independent third parties like Comparakeet that can check in on web hosts from time to time and generate an approximation of their reliability from there.<\/p>\n

Here are our top three picks for web hosting providers with great uptime:<\/p>\n

HostGator<\/h3>\n

HostGator<\/a> has registered a solid average uptime of 99.99% in the past couple of years. That’s a pretty good number, especially if we recall our “acceptable minimum” of 99.95%.<\/p>\n

As for guarantees, HostGator offers two kinds, and which one you get depends on the plan you’ve signed up for:<\/p>\n