Are you constantly receiving those “your site is down” alerts practically every day? Irritating, right? I had this issue before. The reality is, 9 out of 10 times your site is not actually broken. What is usually broken is mail server blocks, typically not you shared hosting blocks, which are creating false alarms.
To put this in perspective, living in an apartment is like shared hosting. If one neighbor is doing something loud, everyone experiences it. That is shared hosting.
So what could be the reason for all those alerts every day?
• Resource Limits - Your hosting company has an extremely small limit on CPU, memory or speed. It could be your site or another site using those resources making it throw alerts.
• Firewall Blocks - If your monitoring tool is making too many requests it may block the monitoring tool.
• Server Updates - Sometimes they will reboot things at night for backup or updates and this will make your alerts fire.
• Too Many Users - If the hosting company has you with too many sites on one server, the web site experience becomes quite wonky.
Here's the reality - not every downtime ping means your site is actually down.
• Ask support – Your host will be able to let you know fairly quickly if your alerts were false or associated with server tasks.
• Whitelist your monitor's IP – Some hosts will allow you to whitelist your monitor tool so it won't end up being blocked.
• Change alert timeframe – Set your alerts only if a downtime is longer than 2-5 minutes.
• Upgrade your hosting – If you notice alerts on a daily basis, it may be smart to migrate to VPS or cloud hosting.
Next time you monitor pings you and think – is my site really down.....or is this just the host doing its thing?
What’s Really Happening
Shared hosting is cheap and convenient. You pay a small amount of money, and your site is alive. However, the problem is, you are sharing the same server as a number of other websites.To put this in perspective, living in an apartment is like shared hosting. If one neighbor is doing something loud, everyone experiences it. That is shared hosting.
So what could be the reason for all those alerts every day?
• Resource Limits - Your hosting company has an extremely small limit on CPU, memory or speed. It could be your site or another site using those resources making it throw alerts.
• Firewall Blocks - If your monitoring tool is making too many requests it may block the monitoring tool.
• Server Updates - Sometimes they will reboot things at night for backup or updates and this will make your alerts fire.
• Too Many Users - If the hosting company has you with too many sites on one server, the web site experience becomes quite wonky.
My Experience
I remember having a simple blog a while back and setting up uptime monitoring. I started to get alerts every night at around 2 am that my site was down. I began to panic thinking that I was losing readers. Turns out, my host was doing those backups around that time, and it was pausing my site down long enough to throw alerts.Here's the reality - not every downtime ping means your site is actually down.
How to Solve It
There are a few simple things you could do:• Ask support – Your host will be able to let you know fairly quickly if your alerts were false or associated with server tasks.
• Whitelist your monitor's IP – Some hosts will allow you to whitelist your monitor tool so it won't end up being blocked.
• Change alert timeframe – Set your alerts only if a downtime is longer than 2-5 minutes.
• Upgrade your hosting – If you notice alerts on a daily basis, it may be smart to migrate to VPS or cloud hosting.
In Conclusion
Shared hosting blocks are commonplace. This does not always mean there is something wrong. It's part of the shared space deal.Next time you monitor pings you and think – is my site really down.....or is this just the host doing its thing?