As we all know, websites sometimes can go down from circumstances beyond your control. It’s important to be prepared for when this happens so you can navigate the bumpy times with as little impact as possible to your business. There will be occasional problems with your site. What follows are some ideas for handling a site shutdown or slowdown. We’ll review steps you can take to protect yourself before a site crash and what to do when the unthinkable becomes real.
If Your Site Appears to be Down
1. Check your website provider’s system status page or call them directly to see if it’s a known issue.
2. Call other operators. Ask friends to check from alternate locations to see if they’re experiencing the outage. Sometimes local Internet carriers have routing problems; it might not be the store.
3. Report it. If the site is down and not listed on the updates page, contact a support representative to report the outage.
If Your Site Goes Down
Follow a plan to save as much business as possible. You must let customers know that you know you’re having a problem and you need somewhere to send them to protect your business.
Option 1: The Easy Way
Before it happens: Make a landing page informing customers that your site is experiencing issues and give them a phone number where they can place orders. Keep this on an externally hosted account separate from your main store and keep the page hidden until you’re ready to use it.
When it happens: If your site goes down and you think it will be down for more than a few minutes, quickly switch your DNS settings to point to the landing page you created. This will inform customers and allow you to save some of the orders.
Option 2: The Hard, Better Way
Before it happens: Create another store on another platform with another web host. Keep your second site updated at least once per month so it is as close to a mirror as possible. Make sure to password protect the site, so it doesn’t get “spidered†and picked up as duplicate content.
When it happens: If your site goes down and you think it will be down for more than a few minutes, quickly switch your DNS settings to point to your secondary store.
Shopping Cart Issues:
Approach with preparation and prevention.
Before it happens: Create a banner mentioning that your shopping cart is having problems and encourage customers to call in their orders. Also create a variable that allows you to display emergency text on all of your item pages. Get help from a programmer unless you are comfortable with store programming.
When it happens: Activate the banner, update the emergency text and put a message on your shopping cart. Publish your site and checkout settings so your customers can see the message and you can save the orders.
It’s important that you have a plan in place in case your site goes down, whatever it may be. While the above are strictly worst case scenarios, if your volume is high enough, it’s better to be safe than sorry!
