Thread: another unplanned outage to my site

Hi,

Is anyone else having a problem with a certain Irish web host (not the one mentioned in an earlier thread). I don't want to mention names right now. I've suffered my second outage in 2 weeks (that I know of). This makes me think, how may outages have there been that I'm not aware of?

With an expensive AdWords campaing running, I'm paying for clicks that go nowhere. I've asked to be compensated, so we'll see what happens there but I might be looking for a new home soon.

I've also a problem with their support. I have to say I've found it hit and miss. My problems only seem to be solved once a certain individual there gets involved. And they're issues that really should be fixed quickly, database permissions, and such - no rocket science.

One other thing, are there any free tools I can use to measure the uptime of my site, and go back to them with proof of outages? I've no problem with planned outages - I work in IT and sometimes its part of the deal. But if these guys are taking sites down to do upgrades on their servers without telling their customers, then that's a different matter.

Any ideas on what to do?

Thanks.

Originally Posted by askaboutfood.ie

With an expensive AdWords campaing running, I'm paying for clicks that go nowhere. I've asked to be compensated, so we'll see what happens there but I might be looking for a new home soon.

Are you on a dedicated server?

Do you have an SLA?

Originally Posted by askaboutfood.ie

One other thing, are there any free tools I can use to measure the uptime of my site, and go back to them with proof of outages?

The free tools aren't much use, as they only check a site's uptime once every 20 minutes or half an hour, so they're totally unreliable.
There are paid services which you can use to check a site every couple of minutes from multiple locations and get them to check for a string of text for example, but they aren't free (obviously!)

Originally Posted by blacknight

The free tools aren't much use, as they only check a site's uptime once every 20 minutes or half an hour, so they're totally unreliable.
There are paid services which you can use to check a site every couple of minutes from multiple locations and get them to check for a string of text for example, but they aren't free (obviously!)

Site 24x7 is brilliant. I don't know if it's available to everyone, but i've been with them for ages, even when they were in beta. Never paid a penny, and now I even have 1minute monitoring.

Emails me, when there's downtime. Emails me, when it's back up. and then once a week, i'll get a really accurate report.

The only way to get service levels for uptime, support, etc, is to buy a dedicated solution - be that virtual or physically dedicated.

If your site is important to you, and particularly if it generates revenue, then you need to talk to your host (or another one) about a solution that meets your uptime and support expectations while fitting into your budget.