If money makes the world go round, then having your website up and running is crucial. The amount of revenue that is affected every time your services aren't available online is staggering. Let's take a look at Google as an example. Googles? net earning in a recent quarter were $1.2billion. Assuming GOOG has uniform traffic over a 24 hour period a .01% downtime would cost them $480,000 per year. I don't think even Google wants to lose that pocket change.



Most markets are incredibly competitive when it comes to consumer sales. When they are online, most typical consumers don't mind going to someone else's website to buy the item they are after. This can have a major impact on business if you are selling a high priced item. Online marketing departments are always trying to come up with new ways to bring traffic to their website. To have the website go down would negate those efforts as customers will willfully go to another site.

Another impact website downtime can have on your business is customer satisfaction. Consumers want to do business with companies who are dependable. If they can anticipate problems every time they visit your website, they will most likely assume the rest of your business is run the same way. You have a small window of opportunity to attract and keep a consumer. It would be tragic to know that a long term consumer was lost because of website downtime. Something that is so preventable.

Consumers aren't the only ones looking at your website. Potential investors will also be impacted by website downtime. If your website happens to be experiencing a technical glitch when an investor happens upon it, it won't reflect nicely. Negative publicity of any kind is taboo for an investor.

Making sure your website is constant and dependable should not just be the CTO's responsibility. As a company, every department should be concerned with website downtime. The revenue brought in by the internet is only predicted to grow. Ensure your company is set to handle that growth appropriately.