The Best Web Hosting List

The best web hosting companies will offer what is called an “uptime guarantee”. More often than not, you will see this uptime guarantee listed in a percentage – for example, 99.9% or 99.99%, etc. There are a couple matters to consider, however, to understand exactly what each web host means by ‘uptime guarantee’.

1. Various Degrees of Uptime

Yep, 99.9% and 99.99% are very different! Though the numbers may appear similar in length, web hosting is a precise science. Here is a quick list of the most popular web hosting uptime guarantees to show what they translate to in actual downtime:

99.5% = up to 216 minutes per month of downtime
99.8% = up to 87 minutes per month of downtime
99.9% = up to 44 minutes per month of downtime
99.99% = up to 5 minutes per month of downtime
99.999% = up to 27 seconds per month of downtime

2. Downtime is Calculated Per Month

As you’ll note from the chart above, web hosting downtime is calculated per month. This means that any reliable web hosting provider MUST have at least 99.9% uptime for you to be happy with their services. After all, would you be happy with 3.6 hours of downtime per month? That’s almost 2 days of downtime per year!

3. How Uptime is Measured

The actual uptime of any web hosting provider is measured through every single server they own. So while one server may experience 2 hours of downtime per month, if all of the other servers only experience less than 5 minutes per month of downtime, that web host is ranked as having 99.99% uptime.

4. Compensation

Some of the best web hosting companies will offer to compensate you if they do not meet their uptime guarantee. This is great for you, because many web hosting providers will give you free hosting or discounts on future renewals. Though if it happens too often, no amount of freebies can make up for bad hosting service.

5. What Really Matters

Web Hosting Uptime Guarantees are only numbers measured by various statistics, and odds are, you will likely never notice your web host’s downtime if you choose a reliable web hosting provider from our top 10 web hosting list. Just be wise, knowledgeable, and cautious in your web hosting search and you’re sure to pick the best hosting provider out there!