“The website is down again!”

How many times have you heard that? If you hear it more than once or twice a year, you might have a problem.

How it used to be

If you have an older site, it might be located on a single server. That means that if it gets too many hits at once or there’s a problem in that one location, your website will go down.

That was the old way of putting up a website. Some smaller companies will still offer you “on-site hosting”. It’s usually inexpensive and they push it because then they can have it right there in front of them.

How it is now

With the advent of cloud computing, websites can be set up to be redundant. This means that your website can be repeated all over the globe. 

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and many more have cloud servers all over the world. The goal for these servers is to shorten the distance between your site and the end user. For example, if you have a website hosted only in Florida and someone in Seattle wants to take a look, they might have difficulties if there’s a lot of traffic in between. Also, if the server in Florida is down for maintenance or lost power or is simply overwhelmed, the consumer might not see your site.

With cloud computing, your site is copied on servers everywhere. The person in Seattle is really looking at a complete copy of your site on a server in, say, Seattle. Every day, the cloud system will go out and look at your website to make sure everything matches. Also, every time you make a change, the cloud system will send out a message and new copy to all the servers.

What about the big national hosting sites

Every day, you’re contacted by big dealer website companies that want your business. They can set up a site in a few days and might even make it seem less expensive. 

The problem is that many of those companies haven’t updated their infrastructure. They aren’t using cloud computing to store your site. They still have everything on the server they installed in 2001. This means that if they have a problem on their server, you’re out of luck. 

Almost every dealership has tried working with these companies once or twice. It all sounds so awesome and easy, but you’re just a number. You’re one of thousands of other dealerships that have hired them to make a cookie-cutter website that looks exactly like everyone else’s. 

The cost savings is not worth it. The hassle is definitely not worth it. There’s a better answer!

Buy local

Instead of taking what looks like an easy path, talk to your local website design companies. They’ll help you build a great website and they’ll put up on the cloud systems for you. 

Smaller companies don’t generally have their own services to put the website on. Instead, they build on cloud systems that will automatically install redundancies. There will be copies of  your website everywhere, making it easier for consumers to access it from anywhere, instantly.

Service outages aren’t necessary any longer with websites. That’s all very 1999. Today, with the massive cloud server systems, your website should be up and available every day, all day.

If you have any problems or aren’t sure what to do, contact us. We’ll help you find a great vendor for your website.

---

Back to Blog