100% uptime guarantee is one of the commonest hosting features showcased by almost all web hosts, for attracting customers. So, what actually uptime means, how does it impact your website, and how can you be sure if the uptime being provided by the hosting company is genuine? Let’s take a look.

In web hosting parlance, Uptime denotes the amount of time a website is active on the Web. So, the higher the website uptime, the higher is its accessibility. Thus when a web hosting company assures 100% uptime, it is followed by a natural assumption that the website would function uninterrupted on the Web. But such factors as server or network failure, and maintenance activities, make it impossible to achieve a 100% uptime. With such facts to consider, no honest web hosting service would promise a 100% uptime.

When a web host assures a certain uptime, it really means that the host will strive to provide the guaranteed uptime, and in case of failure, will compensate the customer. Thus if a web hosting provider assures 99.99% uptime, but has been able to deliver only 90.99%, then the web host is obliged to compensate customer for the 9% downtime. Most uptime guarantees are provided for a monthly time period. 99.9% uptime guarantee is considered a good statistic as the downtime is low (43.2 minutes).

When a web hosting solution claims 99.999% or 100% uptime, make sure if it refers to network uptime or server uptime. Network uptime refers to the uptime of the hosting network (ex: LAN, WAN) provided by the web host. So, if this network goes down and your website goes offline as a result, then the webhosting company compensates for the downtime. Server uptime, on the other hand, is the uptime of the server that hosts your website. So, if your website is inaccessible because of a server failure, you will be entitled to compensation.

Network uptime guarantee is a loss to customers because network failure rarely occurs, except for natural calamities or man-made catastrophe. If your website goes down because of server failure, the network would still be operating as your server is only one of the hundreds or thousands of servers that form the network. So, you would not be eligible for any compensation. Network uptime guarantee offered by web site hosting providers is just a trick of the trade.

Uptime is significant for individuals, and crucial for businesses. So, it is always important that you choose reliable web hosting services. Perform an extensive research on different web hosts; utilize forums and blogs that provide customer reviews on hosting services, to decide on the credibility of a service provider. Make use of uptime monitoring tools, which monitor your website uptime over a period of time. Such tools are available online free-of-cost, or can be subscribed to for a fee in case an in-depth monitoring is required.