Web hosting uptime is a measurement of the time a computer server has been running, the longer the web hosting uptime the better the service (usually). Uptime is important to not only web hosting companies, but to any person or company that has a website, because if a website is down it could hurt a personal company’s reputation as well as the reputation of the web hosting uptime guarantee. Web hosting companies strive for a 99.9% uptime, which means that there would be less then 2 minutes of downtime a day.

Factors that impact a web hosting uptime are sometime unavoidable, but many companies strive to prevent downtime. Downtime can be classified in three ways: planned downtime which is caused when a server is updated or upgraded, semi-planned downtime which is caused when software companies find a security breach and a patch must be put into place, and the worst is unplanned downtime which can be caused by an overloaded server, a software/hardware malfunction, or malicious software.