Site Down? Here’s What I Learned About My Web Host

Reading time: 8 – 12 minutes

I’ve noticed recently that BlueHost, my web hosting provider tends to have frequent downtime. Yesterday was one of those days which really put it into perspective because my site stopped letting me in while I was working on a post. So I apologize if you haven’t been able to get through. You’re not the only one. Thus, I was unable to post yesterday.

To my dismay, I thought this was going to be a 10 minute problem which is normal as it has been for the pass few weeks. It went on towards an hour, then towards 2, 3, 4. I was not too happy with what’s going on.

Why did I wait so long?

I assumed there was going to be some server upgrades going on or even my domain name registrar working on something as well. I checked NameCheap which I bought the domain from and then BlueHost. They both had no news about downtime on their site.

Using Uptime Robot to notify me when my site is up or down, I started to track the downtime this month. To my amazement, the frequency of the result is not too pleasing. This is something you shouldn’t ignore. TIP for future web hosting hunters – check your web hosting provider’s downtime history.

Note below the downtime BlueHost has given Blogging For dot INFO this month alone:

If you see the latest status for yesterday, yes that got me worried. Much that I loaded up the live chat and asked for customer support. Here is the content of what went on during my conversation with the technician.

Chat Content:

Ryan P: [10:05:04 PM] Welcome to our real-time support chat.
How can I help you today?

Thu: [10:05:55 PM] Hi, I was just asking earlier about my site.
It's down, probably for the last two hours.
[10:06:19 PM] domain http://www.bloggingfor.info

Ryan P: [10:06:40 PM] Let me take a look

Thu: [10:08:14 PM] Thanks

Ryan P: [10:11:19 PM] Looks like there is an ongoing server problem
with one of the pieces of hardware and they are currently trying to
replace a piece of hardware to bring the server back, sorry for the
inconvenience, they say it should take about 30 minutes to finish

Thu: [10:13:14 PM] Was this announced? I wasn't aware of this and while
I am working on site maintenance, this has stopped me from what I was doing.

Ryan P: [10:14:09 PM] This wasn't announced because of it happened
suddenly, you can usually check our serverstatus page but they just
narrowed it down to what the problem was and having posted it on the
server status page

Thu: [10:14:59 PM] Is this an ongoing thing for the moment while I know
Bluehost just redesigned itself, are there other features being implemented
which I should be aware of. I would like to not run into this again.

Ryan P: [10:16:39 PM] There were recent upgrades to the kernels of the
servers which happens once every 5 years or so, that had caused some
functions on some servers to work differently so they've been working
on those as well, but thats about it.

Thu: [10:18:48 PM] Will this improve the downtimes of sites in general?
I have noticed my site in particular has experienced frequent downtimes
this month alone. However, not as great as today.

Ryan P: [10:19:35 PM] This will indeed improve all the servers running capabilities

Thu: [10:22:07 PM] Thank you. One last question, how often does bluehost
go down to check their servers? This would be beneficial in knowing when
my site might be down as well?

Ryan P: [10:24:06 PM] Usually there is maintenance every two weeks where
the server if needed will be restarted and will go down for about 15 minutes.
This is usually done around 2:00am M/S/T

Thu: [10:25:39 PM] Great that's all I have to ask for now. There's nothing
we can do if it's a technical problem. I'll sit tight and wait on it. I hope
I'm not the only one affected. Are there others as well?

Ryan P: [10:26:14 PM] Yeah, there were others, so it is a big deal to us and
we are working hard on getting it back

Thu: [10:28:03 PM] Thank you for your time. That's all I needed to know. Thanks.

Ryan P: [10:28:13 PM] Thank you so much for contacting support, and please
let us know as you have additional questions in the future. If interested,
a great deal of valuable information can be found in our knowledge base at:
http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/ and in our video tutorials at:
http://www.bluehosttutorials.com/tutorials. Be sure to have yourself a great day!

While the problem remained unsolved, there’s nothing much to do on hardware issues. I continued to wait a couple more hours. The process was beginning to take too long. So I hopped on over to the help section within BlueHost and checked on the server status notification of my domain as advised by Ryan.

There were no alerts for the system in general but there was a choice which I could input the specific domain to check the status of. Here’s what I got inputting in this blog URL:

Bluehost Downtime – What’s really behind it?

I decided to investigate further if BlueHost is really what it’s all cracked up to be. While downtime is something which I failed to consider being lured into the marketing game of web hosting bests frenzy, thanks WordPress for suggesting this, it’s now costing me some time and also even visitors.

I did some research and here’s what I found which pertains to downtimes with my host.

• Downtime – twice this year? DoS attacks? ummm no.
• Bluehost Web Hosting Reviews
• Bluehost Sucks – Bluehost downtime

I’m not the only one experiencing the problem after all. There were tons more but I got the picture after reading through these sites. It’s enough to let me know that it’s a common theme and not something I thought I was crazy with.

The Hosting Game In General

One of things which makes shared hosting notorious is their downtime. Yes, downtime is something which you should expect. It’s not perfect but it’s cheap. You get what you pay for. Period.

Below are more resources which puts into perspective the hosting game in general along with tips for survival and tools for monitoring. Don’t be surprise to see that the market surrounding your host is actually a matter of trumping the other over services. If you do decide to go with a web host, try them out for 3 months to start. It’s enough to understand the effects long-term.

Take a look below and educate yourself more on the hosting game overall.

• Shared Hosting and Site Downtime
• There’s No Upside to Web Hosting Downtime
• Hosting Downtime and Competition
• Important Tips to Prevent Site Downtime
• Switch Hosts Without Downtime
• Web Host Uptime (& Downtime)
• Monitoring Uptime
• Learn How to Minimize Web Hosting Downtime

Lesson Learnt

With the internet still on but my site down, the uncertainty of where to start off next fueled by the worries of what-ifs, I wrote this article to ease the next reader that downtime is something which is commonplace. It is better to put those worries into educating yourself and even giving your readers a lesson worth considering. That will make your time and theirs more valuable.

The thing is while I was not on site, being away from it created more hunger which brought many more ideas towards cranking out more interesting articles. Call it a hiatus, I now advise you to take some time away from your blog if you’re attached to it daily as I have been for the last few months. As they say time away creates desire. Don’t ask me who said that.

Going back, it’s all about the power of pausing. Slow down, write your article, refine it and then log on to post it. All that energy into creation is really worth the downtime.

Has your site been down? How have you coped with it?