For those in the Internet business the availability of their web site is a major concern. The cost of downtime for web businesses can amount to $10,000 an hour. And this is without counting the losses caused by missed opportunities and lost sales. Losses in image and credibility these businesses suffer because eventual downtime is even harder to quantify.

Many of today's web hosting providers offer 99% uptime for their web servers. If you have already chosen one or if you are planning to use one with such a high uptime should you be concerned on the whole matter anyway?

Let's see how much 99% uptime means. For a 30-day month you have a total of 720 hours. 99% of this is 712.8 hours. Are you comfortable with your web site taking a day off every month? And this if 99% uptime happens. Can your web hosting provider back up its uptime promises with real facts? How can you tell that?

For companies making business online it might seem a good idea to move their Internet operations in-house. They develop their own infrastructure, hire specialized personnel, only to keep their business online. The cost of such an enterprise would seem rather high for the ones seasoned in the Internet business. Why? Because of the high cost implied: around $20,000 a year, without even thinking of the logistical burden.

The best way to avoid that while ensuring your business is online is to have monitoring reports available on your web host's uptime.

For companies or individuals having their web hosting providers monitored by a third party is a guarantee not only that their money is well spent, but also, an most importantly, that their Internet business is up and running.

Having their services monitored by a third party is beneficial even for the web hosting providers. That is serious web hosting providers. Offering reports of their uptime monitored by a third party and placing links to them on their home page is bound to boost the confidence of existing customers as well as the one of the prospecting customers in the quality of service that host is providing for its customers.

This is a not only a great marketing tool, but also translates to very good customer relationship. This is vital to web hosting providers as the cost of attracting a new customer is from 5 to 10 times higher than the cost of retaining an existing customer.

Having monitoring reports, even better if they are provided by a third party, available on the host's web site is sure to reduce the burden on the technical support center. Many calls to technical support centers from customers regard dial-up problems such as slow connection, download times, web site accessibility or various computer issues that are often related to the personal computer of the customer rather than are problems on the host's side. This is why the number of calls to the tech support center could be reduced up to a third simply by posting the monitoring reports on the hosting provider's web site or by simply providing a link to them.

As shown above, when talking about downtime problems the stakes are high in the Internet business. Disputes regarding the uptime will never be missing between the web hosting provider and its customers, and their resolution is almost every time a delicate issue. This is why independent monitoring provided by a third party can make the resolution of these disputes much easier for the conflicting parties.

Having a web host that provides monitoring of its uptime by a third party is the best guarantee that you can get for your web site's uptime. With such level of service you can be sure that the money you are spending for your web presence can give your or your company the best return of investment.

Calin Indre is editor at HostPinPin (http://www.hostpinpin.com ), a Cheap Web Hosting Directory. HostPinPin.com is a resource for webmasters and consumers looking to find a web hosting company. Providing web hosting articles, tips, web hosting reviews, compare web hosting plans, free web hosting guide, free hosting quote, web hosting glossary and more.

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