We publish a monthly uptime commitment for our infrastructure. The exact figure and the conditions live in the Support Policy and in the frequently asked questions. This article covers the part that is usually missing: what that number actually measures, and what falls outside it.
What is measured
The question is a simple one: does the server answer? We measure the infrastructure that is ours, which means the hardware, the power, the data centre network, and the services running on the server (the web server, mail, the database). If all of that is up and serving requests, the time counts as available.
What the number does not measure is whether your particular site looks right, loads fast, or works at all. A perfectly healthy server will happily serve a broken website all day long.
| Counts as downtime |
Does not count |
| The server does not answer |
The domain points somewhere else, has the wrong nameservers, or has expired |
| Data centre network or power down |
The site stopped after an update, a new plugin or a theme change |
| Web server, mail or database stopped on the server |
Planned maintenance, announced in advance |
| A failure on our side that makes the account unreachable |
Service suspended for non-payment or for breaching the Terms |
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The visitor connection, or a fault at their own provider |
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The account hitting the plan limits through its own consumption |
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The most common cause of "my site is down" is not the server: it is the domain. An expired domain, or one with the wrong nameservers, makes the site unreachable worldwide while the server carries on working as if nothing happened. That is why the first step is always the same: check the domain.
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How to check for yourself, in five minutes
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Try another address on the same server, such as webmail or cPanel itself. If those open, the server is alive and the trouble is with the domain or with the site.
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Check the domain with our WHOIS lookup: look at the expiry date and the nameservers. If the date has passed, that is your answer. If the nameservers are not ours, that is your answer.
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See whether it is only you. Open the site on mobile data with Wi-Fi switched off. If it opens on the phone but not on the computer, the problem is your network or your machine.
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Open a private window. That rules out browser cache and extensions, which are behind a good share of false alarms.
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Read the error. A 500, a blank page or a PHP message point at the site. A request that spins until it times out, or a connection error, point at the network or the server.
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Check consumption in cPanel, under Resource Usage (the Metrics section). If the account has been hitting its memory or process ceiling, the site goes slow or errors at peak times, and that is consumption, not downtime.
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Write down the exact time, the address you tested and the message you saw. A timed note turns the investigation into minutes. "It was down this morning" makes us search a whole day of logs.
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What we do, and what stays with you
We watch the network and the infrastructure, and we act on them. On shared and reseller plans the environment is ours end to end: the panel, the server, the network and the mail service.
On unmanaged servers the split is different: the hardware, the network and the power are ours; the operating system, the updates, the firewall and the applications are yours. Outages caused by changes you make on the server are yours too. It is all written down in the Support Policy.
Planned maintenance is announced in advance and does not count as downtime. We schedule it for quiet hours precisely so that it gets in the way as little as possible.
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To claim under the commitment, open a support request with the dates and times you were down. When it applies, and what it entitles you to, is set out in the Support Policy: that is the document that counts, not this article.
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Think you were down, and none of the above explains it? Give us the time and we will go through the logs.
Open a support ticket
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