The Internet has become an increasingly integral part of our everyday lives. Consumers access websites from an array of mobile devices at all hours. When a consumer goes to a website, they expect that site to be up and performing properly.

2020 is upon us and if there is one thing humanity has learned throughout its history, it is that if one hopes to succeed in the future they must learn from the mistakes of the past. Lessons learned from episodes of website downtime are no exception to this rule.

Here at Alertra, we often tell our readers to communicate with the pubic whenever their websites experience downtime. We also suggest utilizing social media platforms, such as Twitter, to keep the public updated and informed. What happens, however, when Twitter becomes unreliable?

One might be lulled into a false sense of safety in terms of website downtime when we consider the advances that have been made in technology. The fact of the matter is, however, that protecting your website from downtime is important more now than ever. Yes, technology has indeed advanced and there are now more tools than ever at your disposal that can help mitigate website downtime. The question you must ask is, are you actually utilizing all the tools available to you and do you have a downtime plan in place for your website?

Last month we speculated that, perhaps, Amazon would have learned from the millions the company lost during the website downtime Amazon experienced during 2018’s Amazon Prime Day event. While we were hopeful that Amazon would be ready for 2019’s Prime Day, the fact of the matter is that while we didn’t see massive website downtime and outages that were equal to that of the issues we saw in 2018, some serious problems were still very apparent.

We have, more than once in recent years, questioned whether the etail giant Amazon would properly prepare for their annual Prime Day in terms of accommodating a massive influx of traffic while maintaining website uptime and performance. Prime Day is now right around the corner and the deal hunters who flock to Amazon to take advantage of the deep discounts are wondering if, this year, the site will finally operate without downtime interruptions and serious performance problems.

When it comes to ensuring success online, most website owners would agree that zero downtime is the ultimate goal. Unfortunately, zero downtime, as in no downtime whatsoever, is a goal that can never be achieved. There are measures you can take to minimize downtime, but completely eliminating downtime is out of the question. While this isn’t the ideal answer that many hope for, it is a fact of life in a world of software and hardware errors, third-party failures, and maintenance issues, among other factors.

Travelling is stressful in and of itself. When traveling, you commonly get to look forward to long lines for checking in your luggage, longer lines to weave your way through security (while waiting for the people in front of you to get their shoes back on), and trying to time everything just right so that you can make it to your gate on time to board your flight without waiting at that gate for hours. Widespread downtime that could cause delays and add stress to the travel experience are not something that any traveler wants to deal with.

Literally anyone who owns or operates a website has come to understand the importance of maximizing uptime and keeping track of your website’s downtime and performance. However, as almost all hosting services are now including uptime statistics in their plans, some people have fallen to believe that the need for partnership with a quality website downtime monitoring service is no longer a necessity. This faulty logic couldn’t be further from the truth, however.

Anyone who uses Facebook, WhatsApp, or Instagram knows that Facebook suffered a major Internet outage this March and many are frustrated with the way said outage was handled. What happened? How could Facebook and its affected apps go down for such a long period of time? What should have been done differently? March’s Facebook fiasco is a perfect example of how you should never handle website downtime or a so-called server configuration change.