Uptime, downtime & what they mean
Learn what uptime and downtime mean for your website, how they're measured, what causes downtime, and what to do when your site goes offline.
When people talk about hosting reliability, they talk about uptime — how often your website is available to visitors. When your site is unavailable, that's called downtime. Here's what these terms mean and why they matter.
Quick summary
Uptime is the percentage of time your site is online. 99.9% uptime means your site is down for about 8.7 hours per year. Managed WordPress hosts like Flywheel, WP Engine, and Kinsta all target 99.9% or better. If your site goes down, check the host's status page first, then contact us.
What uptime means
Uptime is expressed as a percentage of total time:
| Uptime | Annual downtime |
|---|---|
| 99% | ~87.6 hours/year (~3.6 days) |
| 99.9% | ~8.76 hours/year |
| 99.95% | ~4.38 hours/year |
| 99.99% | ~52.6 minutes/year |
99.9% uptime is the standard benchmark for reputable managed WordPress hosts. All three of our recommended platforms (Flywheel, WP Engine, Kinsta) target this level or better.
The difference between 99% and 99.9% is significant. 87 hours offline per year is nearly four full days — enough to cause real damage to a business.
What causes downtime
Planned maintenance
Hosts occasionally take servers offline briefly for upgrades or maintenance. They notify customers in advance. This is the least disruptive type of downtime.
Server issues
Hardware failures, software bugs, or resource overloads on the hosting side. Reputable hosts have redundant systems to minimize this.
Traffic spikes
An unexpected surge in visitors can overwhelm a server. Managed WordPress hosts and CDNs handle this much better than basic shared hosting.
Hosting account suspension
If a payment fails and the account is suspended, your site goes offline immediately. See renewing hosting & avoiding lapses.
DNS or domain issues
If your domain expires or DNS records are changed incorrectly, your site becomes unreachable even though the server is running fine. See how DNS & hosting fit together.
Plugin or code errors
A bad plugin update or coding error can cause your WordPress site to crash or display a white screen. This isn't technically a hosting issue, but visitors still see a broken site. See troubleshooting hosting problems.
DDoS attacks
A distributed denial-of-service attack floods your server with fake traffic. Managed hosts have protections against this — CDNs and firewalls absorb most attacks.
How to check if your site is down
Try your site in a different browser or an incognito/private window. Sometimes browser cache creates the appearance of a problem that isn't real.
Ask someone else to try — on a different network (e.g. their phone data). If they can see it and you can't, the issue may be specific to your device or network.
Check your hosting provider's status page:
- Flywheel: check via
status.getflywheel.comor the Flywheel website - WP Engine: check
wpenginestatus.com - Kinsta: check
kinstastatus.com
Use a free uptime checker like downforeveryoneorjustme.com to confirm the site is unreachable globally.
What to do when your site is down
Check the host's status page (links above). If they're reporting an incident, all you can do is wait — they're already working on it.
Contact your host's support if there's no active incident reported but your site is down. Provide your site URL and a description of what you're seeing.
Contact us if the issue isn't resolved quickly or if you need help diagnosing the cause.
Uptime monitoring
We include uptime monitoring for sites on our care plans. If your site goes down, we're alerted immediately — often before you notice. We'll investigate and resolve the issue, and notify you if anything requires action on your part.
Common questions
Related guides
- Troubleshooting hosting problems
- What is web hosting?
- Renewing hosting & avoiding lapses
- How DNS & hosting fit together
- My website is down
Need a hand?
Renewing hosting & avoiding lapses
How to make sure your hosting subscription renews on time and what to do if it lapses — so your website never goes offline unexpectedly.
How to contact your host's support
When and how to reach Flywheel, WP Engine, or Kinsta support directly — and when to contact Chykalophia instead.