What happens when your website goes down?

Websites have become an integral part of a business or an organization in today’s digital age. From one-person businesses or freelancers to big corporations- everyone has websites at this point. However, for a up and running businesses, websites carry a lot more load and can be prone to unexpected mishaps. Websites going down is a common phenomenon experienced by users on the internet. It’s not rare to find an error or “not responding” on a site while browsing. Websites going down have some unpleasant consequences such as reputation damage, loss of revenue and customer dissatisfaction.

First let’s understand what does it mean when a website goes down?

When a website goes down, it becomes inaccessible to its user. Users or customers trying to access the site receive an error message or sees a blank screen. For example, error notice 404 means the page is not found while error notice 503 suggests, the website is temporarily unavailable or a blank screen.

When a website goes down, the users are unable to see the intended content on the website. Instead, they get see error notices or blank screens. There are many potential reasons behind a website going down.

Below, is the list of some of the potential reasons:

01.

  • Network issues: If the internet connectivity between the user and the server gets interrupted, the website becomes inaccessible to the user. This may happen in case of an internet outrage or network issues.

02.

  • Server Issues: The server hosting the website may have some issues such as hardware failures, software malfunctions or inadequate resources to handle the traffic. This may cause the errors shown to the user.

03.

  • Maintenance and Upgrades: Websites require scheduled maintenance and upgrades to function properly. When the website is scheduled for maintenance, users are unable to access content as the website remains offline for that time.

04.

  • Cyber Attacks: Websites are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Attacks such as, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), can cause the websites to go down. These types of attacks overwhelm the server with traffic overload which makes it unresponsive to new user requests.

05.

  • Human Error: Human errors are still a huge reason behind multitude of website errors every day. Human errors, for example; accidental deletion of critical files or misconfiguration of the server can cause the website to go down.


Websites can go down for a range of reasons and not all of them can be controlled by the business owner. However, it is important to be aware of the consequences of the unexpected complexities.

06.

  • Reputation Damage: Website going down is not a pleasant experience for the user. It is very much possible that for first time they come to visit your website, only to find it’s down. This makes the business look unprofessional, unreliable and not trustworthy. Businesses loose potential leads and customers this way resulting into a huge loss of revenue.

07.

  • Loss of Revenue: Businesses that rely on their website to generate revenue, can face huge loss for website downtime. New leads coming to your website to explore are disappointed and chances of them coming back is significantly low. On the other hand, repeat customers, when they fail to make a purchase may chose to visit a competitor’s website causing potential loss of revenue to the company.

08.

  • Reduced Customer Satisfaction: A bad website is like having bad sales people in a physical outlet. Just like sales people, a website is the representative of your brand. Customers may find it rude or even offensive if they find the website going down every other day. This causes dissatisfaction and frustration among users, especially if they need essential products or services from the website.

09.

  • SEO Impact: If search engines detect that a website is down quite frequently over a period of time, they don’t prioritize them while ranking for SEO.

10.

  • Data Loses: If the downtime is for cyber attacks or human errors, websites may loose a lot of data in some cases.

Businesses have to pay a heavy cost for having the website going down. Some cases of downtime are inevitable. However, there are a few things that can prevent websites from going down frequently.

11.

  • Monitor the Website: Regular monitoring of websites can help prevent website down time. It’s easier in this case to identify any potential errors beforehand so that website owners can take actions accordingly.

12.

  • Have a Plan: Chalk out a Website Downtime resolve plan beforehand. This will work as a map to follow when you’re facing a website downtime problem.
  • Having a Back-up System: Back-up systems can help you restore the website quickly and safely in case of cyber attacks or data loss.

13.

  • Use a CDN: A Content Delivery Network or CDN can distribute website content across multiple servers, reducing the impact of downtime.
  • Invest in reliable hosting: Invest is a reliable hosting plan with steady servers that can reduce the risk of downtime.

Website downtime can have a significant impact on businesses including loss of revenue, customer dissatisfaction and a lot more. It is very important for business owners to be technically literate to resolve these issues even if they have a non-technical background. Being aware of the technologies used in your system, understanding the kind of threats your system may be vulnerable to- helps in reducing website downtime and improve the overall business presence.