Website Crash: Everything you need to know

Website crashes frustrate customers and cost companies millions in revenue, productivity, and brand reputation. And yet every year, dozens of major websites and service providers come crashing down. So why do websites crash? Why can’t massive companies with huge budgets seem to stay online? And what can be done to stop website crashes? 

What is a Website Crash?

Websites crashing is an indicator of something going wrong, like issues with the code, plugin errors, expired domains, hacking attempts, and other issues we’ll cover below. A crashed website has essentially stopped serving data.

This means your blogs, images, videos, and other site resources cannot be accessed by visitors. The minute your client’s website is down, they’re missing out on opportunities to engage with and convert visitors.

So let’s get into the most common reasons websites crash, how you can prevent your clients’ websites from crashing, and how you can help them recover after a crash.

Top reasons for a Website Crash

• Code Error: If your website is poorly coded and contains many errors it will crash. For example, if you use lousy server copies of your website, this might cause a crash. Code error means that the website’s code does not work correctly.
• Virus Attack: Virus attacks are widespread today, and they are also one of the most challenging things to deal with, especially if you do not know what to do or how to fight them off. The simplest way to prevent this problem is by using reliable hosting services that offer secure servers that will protect your website against all possible attacks without getting infected in the first place.
• DNS Error: DNS is Domain Name Server, and this service manages all requests coming in and going out of a server domain name space – when this service is no longer working, your website will not be accessible.
• Plugin Error: When you upload a specific plugin incompatible with your site or version of WordPress, this will cause a crash. To fix the problem, you should continue updating your website until all plugins are up-to-date.
• Domain Expiry: If you have not renewed the domain name, it will cause problems with website access. People usually wait until they get a message about expired domains and then renew them. If you don’t renew your domain in time, there is a chance that somebody else will use it.
• Hacking: It might seem that you can fix a simple website crash quickly, but if it is the result of a hacking activity, you should not use this domain for other purposes until all security gets restored. Hackers usually leave hidden backdoor access, which allows them to come back and continue their illegal activities any time they choose.
• Traffic surges: A website may crash due to high traffic; when there is a sudden increase in traffic, this can lead to an overload which causes the website server to crash. Usually, it happens during significant events or festive periods. If you have a popular website that receives a lot of traffic, then heavy surges can lead to downtime and even a total crash if they occur too frequently. To protect yourself against this kind of problem, you should use reliable hosting services that offer state-of-the-art servers with 99% uptime capabilities.
• Server Provider Error: When your hosting provider makes a mistake, this might cause the server to go down. It often happens because of bad updates or hardware failure, which results in a total loss of service.

How to reduce Website Crashes?

Yes, your website may crash, and it’s not the end of the world, but rooting out the cause can help you resolve the issue more quickly and minimize the damage.

There is no way to guarantee that a website will never crash, but you can reduce the chances of it happening if you take some precautions. Here are some steps you can take to minimize website crashes:

• Review regularly whether all software and applications are up-to-date.
• Keep the plugins up to date, but don’t overload the websites.
• Activate auto-renewal to prevent domain/hosting expiration.
• Pick the right CDN plan for your needs by choosing a CDN plan.
• Do yourself a favor and always have backups of your site’s files.
• Store your backups in different locations on the web server.

Indeed, it is a solid recovery plan, like having backups that allow a website to be restored in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. Additionally, ensure that you and your website team have easy and direct access to your website’s FTP/SFTP. If you have a control panel, ensure your web team can access that too.

Conclusion

As you can see, a website crash is not something that you should take lightly. To avoid it, use reliable hosting services and protect your site against different types of attacks. In case your website goes down due to one of the reasons mentioned above or some other error, the best thing you can do is hire an expert who knows how to fix such issues instantly.