What You Can Do When Your Blog is Down

Posted on 29. Aug, 2009 by Isaac Yassar in Blogging, Uncategorized, WordPress

downHave you suffered from server downtime?

I just experienced my first one. I could not access my website, nor my WordPress Dashboard. When I asked my hosting support, they explained that my shared hosting server was attacked by a hacker. I guess it was some kind of DOS (denial of service) attack.

If you read this, then my server is up again. Update: not just up, it is relocated to a new server now because the old one still has issues, which messes with some of WP functionality.

Anyway, from this experience I learned a few positive things to do when our hosting server goes down:

1. Back up things

Backing up our SQL database, home directory, and full backup is a smart precaution. None can make sure what will happen next, so it is good to prepare for the worst. With those back up, you are ready for everything.

Even a major social media like Twitter, with all its resources and manpower, can go down. Like what happen a while ago, Twitter went down because of DOS (denial of service) attack. If it can happen to Twitter, it can happen to your server.

When my site was down, somehow I could still access my CPanel. So I did all those back-ups, just in case. It was the only thing I could do there after all.

2. Contact your hosting service

Staying informed of what happens to our server is important to help us stay calm and think rationally. Panic does not help much in such situation. When my site was down, I did not worry much. Most of me knew that measures were taken to deal with the attack, and professionals were working to fix my server.

3. Write your posts offline

If you don’t want to lose your productivity because of down server, you can write posts offline. When your blog is up again, you can publish them. What you need is only typing software like MS Word, Windows Live Writer, etc. I wrote this post when my site was down.

3. Do something offline

There is always a good reason why your hosting goes down when it goes down. You just cannot always reveal it. Being unable to work on your blog means you can take care of other things need doing. Like things in your “offline” life: car needs tuning, house needs cleaning, family needs a picnic, etc.

“There is no such thing as coincidence or accident, everything happens for a reason.”

Have you experienced server downtime? What do you learn from it?

Tags: Blogging, hosting

13 Responses to “What You Can Do When Your Blog is Down”

  1. BestofBlogger

    30. Aug, 2009

    i hope you dont get downtime again

    Reply to this comment

  2. Jared P Little

    30. Aug, 2009

    Down time always sucks. Yes backups are a good ideal with anything. Work offline, yes I do a lot of my planning and idea development on paper then move it to the computer.

    Just curious do you think it your host? I had lots of problem’s less know hosting companies over the years that’s why I am with go daddy now. I havn’t had any issues.

    Reply to this comment

    • Isaac Yassar

      30. Aug, 2009

      Hi Jared. Well, it wasn’t really my host because their shared server was attacked by a hacker with some DoS (Denial of Service) attack. It took them 2 days to fix it, running great now ;-)

      Reply to this comment

  3. Nicola

    31. Aug, 2009

    Hi Isaac,

    The best thing you can do is backing up the mysql data for an easy quick reinstall. Personally, I use Wordpress Automatic Upgrade. Also, I use Spybot and A-squared to make sure to delete any virus, trojan, spyware, and so on.

    Nicola

    Reply to this comment

  4. djupi

    02. Sep, 2009

    I have many times experiencing server down, moreover its data all gone before I backed it up. So I have to rebuild my blog from zero. I think that’s the biggest problem if using shared hosting.. especially free shared hosting. planing to use dedicated server?? :D

    Reply to this comment

  5. Isaac Yassar

    02. Sep, 2009

    Hi Nick and djupi, thanks for your wonderful tips and comments. Yes, I plan to use dedicated server in future when my traffic has grown big, say 1000 visitors per day or more. I think shared hosting won’t be able to handle such traffic well.

    Reply to this comment

  6. Tech-Freak Stuff

    05. Sep, 2009

    I experience a unique problem! I cannot ping my blog anytime even when my blog is always up. Do you know any solution to this problem?

    Reply to this comment

  7. LetUpdate

    16. Sep, 2009

    Woah, I do all that you write here. It seem our thought is same regarding to hosting server down.

    Reply to this comment

  8. David | ilcantone.com

    18. Sep, 2009

    Yes I always write my posts offline. We never know what could happen.

    Good tips.

    Reply to this comment

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