It is essential to select the right blog hosting company. Generally, blog host providers claim that they provide uptimes between 99% and 99.9%. Though this service guarantee is enticing, these numbers can turn out to be deceitful. The difference of 0.9% can actually be large, affecting the degree of commerce on your site.

With that in mind, it is crucial to consider the blog’s down time before selecting the right blog host. For this reason, it is very important to find a blog host that offers the maximum uptime and good customer support that can handle any problems arising from a down server.

Regardless of the type of blog hosting services you use, it is extremely important that you receive sufficient customer support. Having good customer support will help you when your blog is facing downtime.

Look at Your Host’s Customer Service Record

Two important services which are central when looking for a good blog host are customer service and technical support. The importance of these two factors should not be underestimated. Good customer support is a decisive factor and distinguishes good hosting companies from the others.

It is vital to understand the loss a company can incur due to blog or website failure. A survey done by Oracle shows that a business impact analysis is required to understand the cost of website downtime. However, this cost could run in millions of dollars for sites or blogs receiving heavy traffic.

Every time your website or blog is down, you lose some customers- some of them even permanently. Without a proper web monitoring system, it might take too long for a site owner to notice that the website or blog is down. And at that time, if they do not get enough support from the blog host, the results can lead to an even higher rate of customer loss.

This is why you must select a web host that provides 24 hour quality support. Prompt attention is required as soon as blog failure is noted. It is important because there has already been a lot of wasted time between noticing of blog failure and the actual time it happened. A delay on the part of blog host can only add to the injury.

Uptime Impact

To begin with, it is essential to select the web hosting company that offers maximum uptime. As mentioned earlier, there can be a big difference between 99% and 99.9% uptime. Take a look at these examples to get a clearer idea:

99.99% Uptime

There are about 4.38 downtime minutes per month, which means 0.073 hours each month. This is equal to 52.56 minutes per year, or 0.876 downtime hours per year.

99.9% Uptime

There are about 43.8 downtime minutes per month, which means 0.73 hours each month. This is equal to 525.6 minutes per year, or 8.76 downtime hours per year.

99% Uptime

There are about 438 downtime minutes per month, which means 7.3 hours each month. This is equal to 5256 minutes per year, or 87.6 downtime hours per year.

As you can see from the example, minor changes in the percentage figure can impact e-commerce performance to a large degree.

A good blog host would not just provide maximum uptime, but great customer support as well. There are many ways to contact your hosting customer support. There are toll free phone numbers, ticketing systems, and chat options. If you opt to contact support using a ticket, they should reply back within 12-14 hours of submission.

Though many blog hosts claim 24 hour support, many of them turn out to be less reliable when the need arises. To select the right company, it is a good idea to check the customer support by trying to contact them at odd hours to see if they actually provide round the clock service. This would confirm if they are actually available at the times that they claim.

Catherine Gans is a blogger and freelancer  who enjoys writing about web hosting, support systems, blogging, and dog training.