The most important thing to do when you select your web hosting company is to choose a reliable host, but even reliable hosts have occasional down time. We’d like to arm you with a few tips to make sure you avoid disaster when down time occurs.

There are a few preventative measures everyone should take to protect their business:
• First, keep an up to date copy of all of your files. Basically, if it is on your server, you need a current copy of it somewhere you can retrieve it in the event a server goes down.
• Second, keep daily back-ups of your databases on hand. You don’t want to lose all of your customer’s information if the server’s problem happens to be terminal.
• Lastly, having control of the DNS for your domain name is very important in times of trouble. If you have DNS control, you can quickly point your domain to a new hosting company if you need to do so, and having back-up copies of all of your files and databases keeps you from having to wait on your current web hosting company to get their service back up to retrieve those copies of your own information.
These are all extremely important precautions to take to protect your hard work, but don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Knowing that all of your information is safe by putting all of these safe guards in place will allow you to make an educated, rational decision.

Next, let’s focus on what to do if your web hosting service goes down. Contact your current web hosting company and ask how long they anticipate their service to be down. (ALWAYS keep your web hosting provider’s contact information in a place where you do not need the internet to access it. If your hosting company’s service is down, there is a pretty good chance their website is also down, and you will not have access to their contact information via their website.) If a fix is anticipated within a reasonable amount of time, it is easier to wait it out. Calculate ahead of time how long your business can handle being down. If the resolution time exceeds what your business can endure, by following our recommendations above, you will have all of the tools you need to move your service to a new web hosting company whose service IS up. I’d like to reiterate that down time happens to everyone, so evaluate your web hosting provider on their over-all performance, (How often is their service down? How quickly do they resolve problems” etc…)

Also, no one cares for your business like you do, so scrutinize and do what you must to make sure your livelihood is in prime condition!