12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
12 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

When a webhost performs maintenance can visitors be notified?

by glennshep
10 replies
I'm just wondering, if a webhost performs maintenance or upgrades that result in our site being down for extended periods, is it technically possible (or easy) for them to display a notification landing page so that any visitors to our site can see that our site is just temporarily down due to maintenance? Or is it a case of hard luck and we'll just have to hope that people don't assume our site's dead?
#maintenance #notified #performs #visitors #webhost
  • Profile picture of the author Michael71
    I am not sure, but webhosts are not responsible for your visitors.

    If they have to work on something they will let you know, so it's up to you to show your visitors a "maintenance site" or something else.
    Signature

    HTML/CSS/jQuery/ZURB Foundation/Twitter Bootstrap/Wordpress/Frontend Performance Optimizing
    ---
    Need HTML/CSS help? Skype: microcosmic - Test Your Responsive Design - InternetCookies.eu

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7930198].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Andrew H
    If this is something you need to think about then you are clearly with a poor quality host.

    A good quality host will transfer your hosting to another server while they perform maintenance.
    Signature
    "You shouldn't come here and set yourself up as the resident wizard of oz."
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7930308].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author glennshep
      Originally Posted by Michael71 View Post

      I am not sure, but webhosts are not responsible for your visitors.

      If they have to work on something they will let you know, so it's up to you to show your visitors a "maintenance site" or something else.
      That is quite true and it is something that I would have been more to happy to do had I actually been informed before the event rather than afterwards.

      Originally Posted by Andrew H View Post

      If this is something you need to think about then you are clearly with a poor quality host.

      A good quality host will transfer your hosting to another server while they perform maintenance.
      It is this that I was wondering. I'd have hoped that there'd be a least some procedure in place. I haven't much experience with hosts so I wasn't sure as to what the usual procedure is. At the very least, as Michael71 rightly pointed out, they should inform their customers of planned maintenance so that redirection can be arranged if necessary.

      Seeing that this is twice now in the space of a week I've been left without my site without warning, I'm glad that I'd already decided to move elsewhere.

      Thanks for the info, guys
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7930962].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Andrew H
    I am with Servint and I host all of my clients and my own websites on there. Over the last 2 years I can only recall 2 times when the server was down unexpectedly (server failure). Both of these times the outage was quick and I was reimbursed money on my bill. Prior to that I was with Hostgator and prior to that I was with some ghetto reseller because I was clueless, and both of these times I had multiple outages a month - it was horrible.

    If your going to take your online presence seriously I recommend getting a high quality host that has managed services, and that you can configure to suit your needs. So hopefully you switched over to a good company... and not hostgator or godaddy.. or the likes.
    Signature
    "You shouldn't come here and set yourself up as the resident wizard of oz."
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7931913].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author glennshep
      Before getting started I did a lot of comparisons and did meticulous research, all of which led me to the conclusion to stay away from Hostgator. I believe that GoDaddy's continuing slipping reputation speaks for itself. I unfortunately have a couple of domains registered with them but I shall be soon transferring away.

      I ended up settling on Stablehost who, at the time, got very good reviews across the board. I have to say that, until now I've never had any problems and once I submitted a support ticket it was dealt with and resolved VERY quickly. However it does trouble me that they'd planned maintenance and didn't even bother to tell their customers in advance, so the resulting problem left me with a downed site for goodness knows how long until I noticed. Anyhow, I'd already decided to switch due to other circumstances but this experience makes me wonder if I should just switch early. As I said, I've not had any problems until this last week and I haven't been able to fault their service, but the whole keeping customers out of the loop while performing maintenance and then having a downed site isn't the sort of thing I want a repeat experience of
      Signature
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7932218].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
        Originally Posted by glennshep View Post

        Before getting started I did a lot of comparisons and did meticulous research, all of which led me to the conclusion to stay away from Hostgator. I believe that GoDaddy's continuing slipping reputation speaks for itself. I unfortunately have a couple of domains registered with them but I shall be soon transferring away.

        I ended up settling on Stablehost who, at the time, got very good reviews across the board. I have to say that, until now I've never had any problems and once I submitted a support ticket it was dealt with and resolved VERY quickly. However it does trouble me that they'd planned maintenance and didn't even bother to tell their customers in advance, so the resulting problem left me with a downed site for goodness knows how long until I noticed. Anyhow, I'd already decided to switch due to other circumstances but this experience makes me wonder if I should just switch early. As I said, I've not had any problems until this last week and I haven't been able to fault their service, but the whole keeping customers out of the loop while performing maintenance and then having a downed site isn't the sort of thing I want a repeat experience of
        What is the planned maintenance for? StableHost is a well regarded provider and I'd recommend them even though they're a direct competitor.

        Are you sure it was "planned" and not emergency? Sometimes emergencies do happen and can be labeled as planned maintenance.

        I didn't see anything over on WHT about it so perhaps you missed an email or something?
        Signature

        |~| VeeroTech Hosting - sales @ veerotech.net
        |~| High Performance CloudLinux & LiteSpeed Powered Web Hosting
        |~| cPanel & WHM - Softaculous - Website Builder - R1Soft - SpamExperts
        |~| Visit us @veerotech Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7932231].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author glennshep
          Originally Posted by Kingfish85 View Post

          What is the planned maintenance for? StableHost is a well regarded provider and I'd recommend them even though they're a direct competitor.

          Are you sure it was "planned" and not emergency? Sometimes emergencies do happen and can be labeled as planned maintenance.

          I didn't see anything over on WHT about it so perhaps you missed an email or something?
          No, I absolutely 100% did not miss an e-mail. All my important account stuff goes directly to my POP3 inbox that I only use for personal and important stuff and is checked regularly. It was a major PHP upgrade, apparently, however the only way I actually found out that anything was happening was when I found that my site was blank and upon checking Stablehost's service status Twitter I saw one reference as a "reminder" about the upgrade, although "reminder" would imply that there had been previous notice, of which there appears to be no evidence.

          I turns out that, for some reason, there problem with my site loading php pages, what exactly I don't know as they didn't tell me precisely. So to fix it they downgraded to php version 5.2 and everything started to work again.

          Presumably, had the upgrade gone without a hitch then any downtime would have been minor, but if there had been some notice about it then at least I'd have been able to monitor for any problems. I appreciate that maintenance is necessary, of course, and that sometimes unexpected problems and glitches arise. However, in my mind, there were at least three different avenues that could have been used to keep customers in the loop and none were used - no e-mail, no notification on the main site and only one last-minute mention on Twitter providing no details about the time, expected timescale, any expected or possible outages, etc. I've been entirely happy with Stablehost up to now but the lack of communication in itself is enough to make me glad that I'd already made plans to switch. That's basic, essential customer service stuff that should be a priority

          P.S. To kpmedia, I just wanted to say that I enjoyed looking through the info in your link. That sort of unbiased, comprehensive info is exactly what people need :-)
          Signature
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7937624].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author kpmedia
    Stablehost rarely has maintenance.
    I think they done maybe 1-2 per year, at most. It's almost never down.

    To do what you ask would require changing the DNS. That's not worth it.
    Signature
    FAQ: Need a Site5/Arvixe/Hostgator alternative? And who is EIG?
    Reviews:     Need a good VPS, dedicated server, or unlimited host? (This is NOT a fake "top 10" list!)
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7936751].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author lordspace
    It depends. If there is some serious maintenance where the hardware has to be shut down... there is no way of letting your users know on the site .. unless you switch to a different IP which means that you'll have to have more than one hosting accounts etc.

    Many companies use a micro site like tumblr and/or twitter to post updates on the status of the downtime. e.g. status.twitter.com, status.twitter.com etc.
    Signature

    Are you using WordPress? Have you tried qSandbox yet?

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7944294].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author jbyte
      A good hosting company should let you the owner of the account know that there is maintenance being done a head of time. BUT sometimes things happens and there needs to be unplanned maintenance, I am sure most companies have gone through this at some point.
      As far as your visitors, you would have to notify them somehow, redirecting the domain, or another solution.
      Signature

      I fix WordPress problems, PM me if you need help

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7945125].message }}

Trending Topics