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Crash!

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"Crash!"

Beware: Even in cyberspace, what goes up, occasionally
comes down.
What's that? Gravity in cyberspace?
That's right. Many entrepreneurs in cyberspace are quickly re-
learning Newton's law of gravity. But this time around it's not
an apple falling, it's their web site.
As a long-time veteran of cyberspace I had nearly forgotten the
consequences of a fallen web site. Recently, I had the occasion
to experience this nightmare and learn the valuable lessons that
accompany it.
If you think it can't happen to you, think again. (Many of my
woes were avoidable, but I got sloppy. (I promise to explain
how YOU can learn from my mistakes in a minute .)
You see, like many of you right now, I thought I was safe. I
went with one of the larger web hosting companies. They
promised daily backups. They promised 99% uptime - even
guaranteed it.
Promises are made to be broken.
My 1000+ page site, bizweb2000.com, the source of 100%
of my small business income, crashed. When it is down, my
income stops. I now know how cold and lonely cyberspace is
when your web site is dead. Not only are these times lonely,
lengthy periods with a dead web site can be very costly.
Take it from me. The grand tally from my recent outage totaled
well into thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Not a big deal for
a large corporation, but for a home-based business like mine,
it's a figure not to be taken lightly.
But could I really have avoided it?
Maybe it was just a little bad luck? After all, downtime
comes with the territory. Outages in cyberspace are far
from uncommon and there will certainly be more in the
future. If I could have avoided any of this bad fortune, I
certainly would have, right? But my own computer was fine.
The crash occurred at my web hosting company, er, that
is my former hosting company, but I'll get to that.
The fact is, I could have done something before it was too
late, but I didn't!
I AM to blame, just as much as anyone else involved. And
when YOUR web site crashes and stays down for long periods
of time, it may be YOUR fault too! Let me explain...
First I'll tell the tale of my little nightmare, then, I'll
reveal the steps YOU can take to avoid such a debacle.
Note: For the record, I will not reveal the name of the
hosting company that brought me to my knees. If you MUST
know, drop me a line personally. It is not my intention
to hurt their business, however badly they wounded mine.
I'll admit that it was tempting, but malicious intent is
not my style and the purpose of this article is to help
you, not hurt them.
Anyway, it all started a few months ago. I noticed that I
was not receiving my normal volume of email one day, so I
sent myself a test message. Sure enough, my bizweb2000
email addresses were dead. I promptly emailed support at
my hosting company and a day-long wait ensued. After hours
of silence, I called them. "It should be working now" they
said. "It's not," I replied. So they "took another look"
and it finally started working an hour or so later. No
message or call from them, just silence. I chalked that
up as just a fluke. I was wrong.
A few weeks after that incident my email addresses went
dead again. In addition, I had recently been notified that my
allowed 1 gig of transfer per month had been surpassed and
my monthly fee would be tripled. Since I was far from thrilled
with the support and I was now paying a premium price, it
made sense to look elsewhere.
After much research, I finally located a support-based
web hosting company where I would move my site. What I
did NOT do was transfer my domain and web site to this
new host right away. I was going on vacation for a week
and figured I'd do it when I got back. This was mistake #1.
Had I gone ahead and transferred it before I left, I wouldn't be
writing this right now. But here I am.
What happened next was THE CRASH..
and the scrambling...
At 8 am on Friday morning, February 13, I fired up my PC
to pick up my email and retrieve the orders from my secure
server. As my browser opened, it stalled. "Cannot connect
to www.bizweb2000.com" it said. Hmmm... I thought. I'll
try it in a little while. 
Well, "a little while" turned into repeated emails and
phone calls to my web hosting company. While I did receive
confirmation from support that their servers were indeed
down, the next sentence worried me a bit "We really don't
know what's wrong yet" the support specialist wrote.
With that, I emailed the president of the company and got
out of my office and went for a drive. I couldn't do much
and the stress was building. I figured I'd be better off
not thinking about it. (Mistake #2)
Upon returning at 6:30pm, I went directly to my PC and
jumped online. Site STILL down.
I picked up my email and there were messages from support
and the president. They came in a 2:40. "Sorry about the
down time. It's back up now." they explained.
Ahhhh. But did they actually check MY site? Who knows. But
it was certainly dead as a doornail at 6:30 when I checked.
I called again and caught someone before they left for the
evening. He promised to email someone about it and have them
look at it. Later that evening my site was brought back up.
That is, until the next crash - the following Tuesday morning.
This second crash lasted over a week!! What's more, they lost
all their data and had no backup! But that's another story
altogether.
In the meantime, I called my new web hosting company and
ordered my domain transfer. I had to get my business off this
web host's dead servers!
What I learned next was even more discouraging. It seems
that when I originally ordered my domain, that same web host
had registered it in their name, and not mine. Why? Who knows?
But technically, they owned my domain even though I had paid
for it and had been shelling out $125 a month to have it hosted.
Needless to say, my problems were getting worse, not better.
Well, to keep this long story from getting any longer, I'll
skip to the end. It took some doing, including multiple phone
calls and letterhead faxes, but I managed to convince InterNic,
the organization that handles domain registrations and transfers,
that bizweb2000.com was in fact mine and that I had to have
it moved from these dead servers. Luckily, InterNic proceeded
with the order.
So, here I am. Happy as a clam once again. My domain transfer
has been completed and my web site is up and running again on
my new server.
All of which brings me to the moral of this story:
(Remember as I started this horrible tale I promised that I
would reveal the steps YOU can take to avoid such a debacle?)
Well, the steps are below for your reading pleasure. Hey, there's
no point in suffering like I did when all it takes is a little inside
info, right? With that, I invite you to learn from MY mistakes...
1. NEVER (I mean Never, Ever, Never) sign up with a web
hosting company that does not offer 24 hour, 7 day a week
support. That means LIVE support, not automated replies.
If you do not have the ability to speak with a live person via
telephone or email, you will sooner or later be in dire straits
like I was. Test the support BEFORE signing up with the web
 Period.
2. Do NOT sign up with a web host without first contacting
a handful of their current customers and asking them about
support. (Not referrals that THEY give you, but customers
that YOU find. You can do this by visiting their bulletin
board area or chat room, if they have one. If not, ask
them for a long list of customers you can contact and call
lots of them.)
3. Do NOT let YOUR domain be registered under someone else's
name. Make sure YOU are the administrative contact. This will
allow you to transfer your domain without your host being
involved. It will speed things up and give you the freedom
that your rightfully deserve.
4. Put two items high on your list: Peering and Mirroring.
Peering is having multiple backbones coordinated in such a way
that when one line gets too slow the server is automatically
switched to the fastest line out. While many providers have
"multiple connections" to the Internet a very, few percentage
of them are able to truly "peer". This means your site will
always be connected at the fastest speed available. Similarly,
"mirroring" means placing servers at different locations. This
not only serves as a back-up, but it enhances your site's
accessibility and connection speeds from all over the world.
5. ALWAYS keep YOUR OWN back-up copy of your site. As
a matter of fact, keep fresh copies on your hard drive and
weekly or monthly copies on a zip disk or tape backup.
Never rely on your web hosting company's promise of back-up.
(Luckily, this is one mistake I did not make!)
Well, that wraps up my little nightmare. I hope you enjoyed.
And do me one little favor would you? Look before you leap. If you
are considering putting a web site up, make sure you follow the
guidelines above. If you already have a web site, take a hard look
at your current web host. Is it a disaster waiting to happen, like
mine was? Send a message to your support team and see how
long it takes them to get back to you. If you are even a little
concerned, you may have good reason to be.
If so, don't wait until you're counting your losses. If you
have ever considered moving your site to a more responsive,
professional host, take it from me - it's much easier to act
than react. Once the nightmare starts, cyberspace is a cold
and lonely place.

*Article by Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing. Jim's site has helped 1000's of regular folks profit online. Check out their FREE "how-to" cybermarketing assistance, free software, business opportunities, manuals, web services and more! Real money is being made on the net -- visit http://bizweb2000.com and get in on it... Can't get to the web? Subscribe to their FREE, weekly BizWeb E-Gazette: mailto:[email protected]

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