What 99% uptime means

By Alex Carter on October 10, 2024

The bottom line, the longer it takes your website to open, the more likely a visitor will not stay to view the content. The result for your website – lost traffic and revenue.

Is there anything worse than a slow loading page?

Absolutely! A website that simply is not there when a visitor tries to access it! If this is a first time visit, unless the visitor has a personal connection or specific interest in your site content, he will NOT come back. Visitors will accept top brand websites who are occasionally MIA, but if you are the newcomer on the block, this is an absolute no-no.

Many web hosting companies promote guaranteed uptime rates, such as “95% uptime” and “99% uptime” which actually sounds like they are pretty fantastic rates. And if you using the mindset of a traditional business owner, they are. In the storefront world, it is an accepted standard for a business to be closed one day a week.

This is the equivalent of being open 312 days a year, or about 85% of the time. But an internet business works on a 24 hour a day availability schedule where 85% downtime equals 1314 lost hours in which your customers have ZERO access to the information on your website.

But the internet world, business is counted in seconds and 95% downtime is equivalent to 1,576,800 of them! When we take into consideration the fact that the majority of visitors will abandon a site if it takes more than 10 seconds to open, that’s a potential for an awful lot of lost traffic and revenue! Think 99% uptime is better?

But in our internet world, where every second counts, it’s like you have the closed sign on your store 315,360 times a year! Shoot for higher than 99% uptime… 99.9 % – closed for 8 hours, 45 minutes and 36 seconds a year 99.99 % – closed for 52 minutes and 33.6 seconds a year 99.999 % – closed for 5 minutes and 15.36 seconds a year 99.9999 % – closed for 31.68 seconds a year Needless to say, it is imperative that you monitor the uptime (and downtime) of your website!