Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Over the past week, this site had slowed down to crawling speed.. taking 2mins+ to load a page.. i noticed it straight away, but couldn’t figure out what the problem was as the site was still up and running but just majorly slow.. i assumed it was a host issue (which it was in the end), but i had to make a decision on whether or not to wait and see what happens, or take matters into my own hands..

I chose the latter.

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The reality is, nobody cares if my site is slow or if it’s down, they just won’t visit it. No excuses, no promises will do. If it’s slow, it’s my fault – plain and simple. It’s my problem, only i can do something about it.

I know this, because this is the way i think 😉 When i see sites down i get angry. It looks unprofessional.. it looks like you’re unprepared..

Most of the time, it’s a host/server problem not caused by you, but you must shoulder the blame imo. For a few bucks a month on a shared plan, you cannot expect 100% uptime.

This is one small lesson i’ve learned in my short time as a webmaster. Always be prepared, always fear the worst, always plan ahead..

In the words of Roy Keane; “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail“.

Thankfully, because i have two servers, my sites are never really in danger of going down for any more than a few hours.. depending whether or not i’m awake or at a PC etc..

1 year ago, if my site went down, i’d be panicking. I’d leave it sit for a few days and cross my fingers all would be ok. I soon learned if you pray for help, it will never come. If you PAY for help, then it will come 😉

So that’s why i have 2 servers, 2 different hosts, a few bucks in my paypal account and a list of emergency links and contacts all at the ready..

It’s normal to have a few hours downtime here and there, well, perhaps not ‘normal’, but acceptable. Even if you have a couple of days downtime if you’re doing major upgrades, that’s acceptable… because at the end of the day you’re improving the site in some form and user don’t mind that..But in general a good webmaster wants to keep downtime to an absolute minimum.

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