What Could Cause a Website Crash?

Every business has been there. The day is trucking along, but it’s quieter than normal. The orders aren’t coming in like they normally do, and you can’t pinpoint why.

Then the news comes in. Your website has crashed.

If you’re like most businesses, you have someone on board to correct the problem. But you’ve already lost an entire day of productivity, plus however long the problem takes to fix.  But why is it happening in the first place?

So why is it happening in the first place?

There are a few reasons for a potential website crash, and we can’t list all of them. But we can give you the most common so you can head off trouble before it happens.

So while your tech support team is getting your website back up and running, let’s look at the five most common reasons for a website crash.

1. The Code is Off

Code is the building blocks of the entire internet. Without it, the entire age of technology crumbles.

And while the most worrisome thing here may be the entirety of modern civilization balancing on the backs of web developers, we’re talking about why your website crashed.

If any part of the code for your site is broken, the entire site can potentially go down. Even if the mistake is relatively small, it can cause a website crash.

This is a common problem, especially right after you’ve made updates to your site. So if you’ve recently launched a new website or made recent changes, this is probably your issue.

Even the best web developers sometimes send up with errors in their code, and while it can be tedious to fix, it isn’t a catastrophic problem.

2. You’ve Got Bots

The Internet, as it has developed, has become similar to the human body. In among the inner workings are endless little parasites. Similar to human germs, these spam bots and viruses can cause endless trouble for your website.

Bots and viruses are constantly searching for weaknesses in the back ends of websites. Once they find a weakness, they wriggle their way in and cause mayhem, eventually causing a website crash.

Worse: once you’ve caught the attention of one of these little guys, chances are, more will come running. They are attracted to certain red flags on websites, and if you’ve gotten the attention of one, the others are sure to be close behind.

And worst of all? Spam bots and their ilk don’t even have to break all the way into your website to make it crash. Enough of them trying to break in will do it.

It’s vital to invest in solid security for your site. It helps protect you against bots, but also against physical hackers and malware.

It’s also important to know the red flags that attract these types of bots, and make sure your site doesn’t have any of them.

3. Too Much Traffic

I mean, is there any such thing as “too much traffic”? Well, if you want to keep your website up and running, there is.

Websites are sort of like freeways. They can fit a lot of cars, and you can have a lot of cars on them and still have traffic flowing freely. But put too many cars on one road and everything grinds to a halt.

The analogy isn’t perfect, but the visual still works. If you see rapid growth in terms of your client base and website traffic, but you don’t upgrade the amount of hosting service, you have the perfect recipe for a website crash.

This is especially troublesome if the traffic spike comes out of nowhere. Sometimes, it isn’t true traffic, but bot traffic artificially inflating your numbers, which is a whole problem of its own.

Keep tabs on your web traffic so that you are prepared for surges ahead of time, and keep an eye on any out-of-place surges so you can stop bot traffic before it gets out of hand.

4. Expired Service

This one is an easy fix, but it’s more common than you might think.

You pay to host your website and to own your domain. That yearly fee goes to make sure your website stays up and running. But if for whatever reason, you forget to renew those services, your website simply ceases to exist.

This is especially common if you pay for your website every two or three years. When you’re used to paying bills every month or every year, it can be easy to let a tri-annual bill slip through the cracks.

The easy fix here is to set up your hosting and domain payments on auto draft, so you don’t have to think about them.

5. Faulty Plugins

Most websites allow third party plugins that can help boost your website’s productivity and effectiveness.

Unfortunately, these plugins can also be a vulnerability when it comes to invaders. They can also wreak havoc with your code if they aren’t compatible.

Plugins may also be out of date, which makes them buggy.

Plugins can be a great addition to your website. Just keep an eye on them to make sure they are still doing their jobs and not becoming obsolete.

So What Made Your Website Crash?

It could be any number of things, from code issues to faulty plugins to malicious malware.

A lot of these can be headed off ahead of time.

Make sure your hosting is up to date, keep an eye on your numbers to avoid traffic overload, and stay on top of security measures.

For added protection, take advantage of a service that lets you know when your site is down so that you know before your customers do.