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Choosing a Web Hosting Provider

Is There an Uptime Guarantee?

SUMMARY: Will your web hosting provider guarantee a maximum amount of downtime?

Plan on performing commerce-related functions with your website? If so, not only can website downtime be a nuisance, it actually can cost you money.

Before choosing a web hosting provider, see if the provider has an uptime guarantee in writing. How often will the website be online, 99.99%, 95% of the time, or is no guarantee available? And is the uptime percentage guaranteed per day, per month, or per year? Although 100% uptime is virtually impossible, downtime should be kept to a minimum.

As important as the guarantee is, how will the web hosting provider honor the guarantee if the uptime is not met? Will you receive a pro-rated refund based on the downtime or free days (or a full month) of service?

Chances are that you will not obtain an extremely high uptime guarantee if you only pay five dollars a month per service. If your website needs to stay online 24x7, think of part of your website fees as insurance. If you pay a little more, you may get a better uptime guarantee.