{"id":15008,"date":"2019-11-14T16:31:14","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T15:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.names.co.uk\/blog\/?p=15008"},"modified":"2019-12-09T15:26:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T14:26:55","slug":"website-downtime-common-causes-and-how-to-avoid-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.names.co.uk\/blog\/website-downtime-common-causes-and-how-to-avoid-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Website downtime &#8211; common causes and how to avoid them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Most businesses now have a website. But if you suffer website downtime or it&#8217;s slow to load, then it\u2019s going to impact on your customers. Visitors expect sites to load in no more than a couple of seconds and if they don\u2019t then they will quickly go elsewhere and you\u2019ll lose sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Website downtime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A slow site will affect your search engine rankings. Google and other search engines prefer fast sites and, consequently, they will rank higher in search results. Good performance will, therefore, be just as important for your SEO as having good content and effective keywords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what\nare some of the most common problems and what can you do to ensure your website\nmaintenance is on top of its game and your site is delivering the best\nperformance for visitors?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hosting\nissues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the\nmost important elements in the speed and reliability of a website is the\nquality of the hosting service that you use. Low-cost hosting services are\noften shared, in other words, your site is on a server with that of many other\ncompanies. This can mean that your site\u2019s performance can suffer through no\nfault of your own &#8211; if another site has a spike in traffic, for example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shared\nhosts also tend to limit the amount of traffic your site can handle, by\nrestricting the number of concurrent connections, or limiting the amount of CPU\ntime it can use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your\nbusiness is heavily reliant on the web, you may be better off switching to a\ndedicated host where your site has a server to itself, or at least to a host\nthat allocates fewer customers to each of its servers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also a\ngood idea to monitor your site so that you are alerted when there is a problem.\nThere are a number of free services available that allow you to do this, or\ncheck with your host to see if they offer one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cyber attacks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ninternet can be a pretty wild place and a key part of your website maintenance\nshould be to protect against malware and attacks. Distributed denial of service\n(DDoS) attacks can bring a website to its knees, and bot and proxy traffic can\nslow your site down too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a basic\nsecurity measure, you should keep your site\u2019s software up to date. If you are\nusing WordPress, for example, ensure that you are on the latest version and\nthat any plug-ins that you use are up to date. You should also use a good web\napplication firewall to prevent malicious traffic from reaching and affecting\nyour site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress\nplug-ins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the\nreasons for WordPress\u2019 popularity as a content management platform is the\nability to enhance its functionality with the addition of plug-ins. But\nplug-ins can also be a source of problems. A poorly designed plug-in or a bad\nupdate can be enough to disrupt the entire site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Backups<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also a\ngood idea to ensure that your site is backed up regularly &#8211; either by your host\nor by you &#8211; so that if an update does cause a problem you can easily roll back\nto an earlier, good version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">We know a\ngreat web host\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Our Web Hosting packages come with top security features built-in and are built on super secure Dell hardware. We give unlimited bandwidth on all of our hosting packages so you never need to worry about hitting limits. You&#8217;ll benefit from a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, plus you can get support whenever you need it from our hosting gurus. We can also set up backups for you so that if you suffer a loss of data, you can reinstate your site with just a few clicks in your Online Control Panel. Sound good? View our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.names.co.uk\/web-hosting\">Web Hosting packages<\/a> or call us on  0345 363 3632.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most businesses now have a website. But if you suffer website downtime or it&#8217;s slow to load, then it\u2019s going to impact on your customers. Visitors expect sites to load&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.names.co.uk\/blog\/website-downtime-common-causes-and-how-to-avoid-them\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":14183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web-hosting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Website downtime - common causes and how to avoid them<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Most businesses now have a website. But if you suffer website downtime or it&#039;s slow to load, then it\u2019s going to impact on your customers. 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