6 Ways To Help When Your Blog Is Down
Downtime is one of those things that we all fear. Some of us have more reason to fear it than others though. A shabby downtime page can lose you valuable traffic.
A few hours ago I decided to check in on a promising new blog I discovered recently. I wanted to see how it was doing and the new content.
That is, until I read the homepage:
"We'll be back very soon. Please hang in there."
That was the entire contents of the page.
Be More Helpful
If your site is down, it's natural to put all of your effort into getting it back up. In the rush to do so, it's too tempting to just throw together a quick "Sorry" HTML page and upload that.
People are going to visit your site while its down, and adding a little substance to your error page will substantially lessen the number of visitors you lose. The extra few minutes it might take are worthwhile.
So what could you include?
- Why is the site down? Is it upgrades? Unplanned server outages? Redesigning? Giving a justification is crucial, especially if you hope to gain any sympathy. Otherwise, your readers will be left to guess in the dark.
- When do you expect it to come back up? The web has been plagued with "Under Construction" and "Back soon" pages for years. We don't trust them anymore as it's not uncommon to find a "Back soon" message that has been up for months. Give a concrete timeframe (Even if it's the next day), so that users know your site really will come back up.
- Is the whole site down? If your blog is just a blog, then this may not apply. But what if you have a forum as well? Or a job board or a mailing list? If these aren't down, make sure your readers know (And the homepage promotion won't hurt them at all!)
- How can I get in touch? Put an email address on the page. Don't leave readers feeling stranded. If they want to check how you're doing (or offer some help!), make sure they can.
- Publish the 3 latest posts. Not everyone uses your RSS feed. What about the loyal readers who just check in weekly? Or even the first-timers who want to see some content? Don't leave them starved for content. It's easy to copy and paste a few posts from a cached page, your database, or even a splog!
- Give readers something to do. One of the best tricks that I will always remember seeing was on DeviantArt. When their site was down for maintenance, they put up a Flash game on the page! How could you be angry at them then?
There's 6 ideas, and none of them would take more than a few minutes to implement. Most of us put a bit of thought into our 404 pages, but a downtime message is even more important. When your whole site is down, it's all you have to sell yourself on.
PS - Incase you're interested, the site was Freelancing Money. And I still want to see how it's doing!
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About the Author - Michael Martin is the founder of Pro Blog Design. He works as a freelance web designer, loves WordPress, and has an unhealthy addiction to smilies. Written on 28th November 2007.
Other posts tagged with Customization, Downtime, Error Pages, Personality.
28th November, 10:43 pm GMT
That's a great idea by Deviant Art ... and I really ought to put some of my stuff up there, even if it isn't all that deviant.
I've done similar with my 404 page, and as you point out I'm not the first person to do this. I guess this'll force me to delve into the WordPress code; it's a very good idea that I really would benefit from implementing.
29th November, 8:30 am GMT
You know, I never thought of the 'give users something to do' routine. That's brilliant. I agree that downtime could use some very helpful notices, because people on the Internet tend to be rabid followers of their favorite blogs. Even people that don't comment or otherwise participate, they'll get annoyed if you don't find a way to keep them posted or say "I'm sorry for being a jerk and taking the site down during your lunch break."
29th November, 7:48 pm GMT
I must say with my new host HoldFire,
29th November, 7:50 pm GMT
I must say with my new host HoldFire, i have ahd 100% uptime, and i only pay $20 a year! thats great value for money i didn't think of downtime pages really because i never take my site down to update i just uplaod the new files or what ever. I suppose if the server went down it wouldnt show the page, my bad...
29th November, 8:09 pm GMT
Well there's whether the server is running or not, like if someone trips over the power cord and it goes down. In that case, no "Sorry we're down" page will display, obviously, unless you have a fail-over hosting system.
But there are plenty of reasons a site could go down that don't have to do with the server. Upgrades, db maintenance, things like that.
The trick would be writing code to test for all of these situations when someone comes to your site, and taking them to an "error page" as appropriate. Or perhaps editing your .htaccess file temporarily, before and after taking the site down...?
29th November, 10:15 pm GMT
Forrest - Delving in is always fun. I think that if I was doing it, I'd just stick up an index.html with it all when needed. I imagine it would be possible to do with WordPress (e.g. You could make it check for a mysql connection, and send it to the error page if it doesn't find one), but maybe that's overkill?
Fred - I imagine that most people wouldn't use it, but for your more loyal readers, I think it's great. It also gives a more human side to your blog, which is nice.
Grant - Sounds good. I haven't noticed any downtime with my host (MediaTemple) either. However, I suppose if I ever broke the blog, or was working on something big etc. then I would need a page like this.
30th November, 2:11 am GMT
On a blogger domain, I don't think there IS a such thing as a 404 page. So, does that mean I cannot use this post?
30th November, 2:03 pm GMT
Is that what people do? Upload a HTML file unto the server when the site is down? I know this isn't very related, but do upload it into the root folder?
I always feel very helpless whenever my site is down because I feel that there should be something that I can do, but aren't doing.
30th November, 6:17 pm GMT
I always like to use use a funny picture or comic to explain whats going on. Even a strange picture with a silly quote is enough to keep people interested.
30th November, 7:32 pm GMT
Pelf; uploading an html file ( index.htm, default.htm, ... something the web server is configured to recognize and serve when somebody asks for / ) is probably the easiest way. Michael is right, that you could use some clever programming, but that's probably a lot of work for not much pay off. Especially considering how you can't really predict everything that might go wrong, or that you might want to change. Murphy's Law...
30th November, 9:42 pm GMT
Digg has a good one they have there logo and a nice design, as well as text explaining what there doing. then each and every worker (all 26 of them) share a link to there favorite website of that moment. It is actually good.
30th November, 11:49 pm GMT
Brad - That's true. There are always a few drawbacks to using a remotely blog like that I'm afraid.
Pelf - Sort of. Whenever your site is completely down, there's nothing you can do. But when your site is down because of a WordPress/database error, or you're upgrading etc. then yep, this is what you would do.
(And yeah, you would upload it to the root folder, as index.html)
Danny - Likewise. Web comics never have trouble here!
Grand - Is that where those links come from?? I've seen that page before, and always liked it. You're definitely right there.
2nd December, 9:49 pm GMT
Well this post is useful IF it's only your blog engine that's down and not the site itself.
If it was the site (server, or connection to the server) itself then there's no way to upload anything in the first place.
In my experience, normally the webservers are configured to look for index.html / default.html before index.asp or index.php or whatever else.
So in the case where something got screwed up on the blog DB or something, then logically the next best thing to do is upload an index.html and do what this post mentioned.
2nd December, 11:02 pm GMT
Yep, if the whole server is down, there's nada that you can do.
4th December, 9:52 am GMT
Actually, how do you recognize downtime?
Normally, when I can't reach my blog, after a couple of refresh, the blog will be fine.
Also how do you load your flash game (great idea) into your index.html? I am interested to know.
4th December, 2:36 pm GMT
If you're on Wordpress, you will know how often the MySQL database can fail. I created a specific hack for Wordpress users a while that implements some of the ideas you cite here. It basically involves editing the file wp-db.php and adding something useful for those moments when your Wordpress site is ill.
db
5th December, 9:10 am GMT
Thanks for the informations here. this is nice, I am currently developing my own blog and Im not into using wordpress or other blog site, but wordpress is nice maybe SOOn ill use wordpress for my blog... Thank you very much this really helps.
6th December, 1:51 pm GMT
bmunch - You can get apps to track your downtime, but I don't have any of those. I just notice it. On my old host; every few days there would be times when the site gave 404 errors, even if it was only for 10 mins or so. On the new host however, that just doesn't happen.
As for embedding the Flash games; you have to upload one to your server (Some sites may even let you link to the games on their server), and then use a code like this: (But change the src, height and width values)
<embed src="flashgame.swf" width="550" height="550" loop="false" quality=high menu="false"></embed>David - That was a great idea. Thanks for sharing.
Mark - No problem. WordPress is a great system, and even though it might seem a little daunting at first, you won't regret using it in the end!
7th December, 1:38 am GMT
wow, I am using now wordpress on my blog, I just finished it last night...It seems good as for now, really good. thanks.
7th December, 3:34 pm GMT
Cool. If you have any trouble with it, the solution is always just a Google away. The amount of support available is incredible.
31st December, 7:28 pm GMT
FYI ... WordPress just issued an upgrade, 3.2.2, which is mainly for security reasons ... but includes a templatable page that will be displayed when your database is unreachable.http://wordpress.org/development/2007/12/wordpress-232/
31st December, 7:56 pm GMT
I saw that as well Forrest. The whole fuss about people seeing your draft posts doesn't apply to me though (I don't use draft posts), so I'm not rushing out for this one.
Have you upgraded to it?
31st December, 8:53 pm GMT
I haven't. The previous upgrade was easy enough with Fantastico ... this one is going to require a bit of work. A bit is probably in the five minute range, but, like you ( by the sounds of it, anyway ) I haven't made a priority of this.
Although, interestingly, I do use drafts... I have two I'm trying to publish - one of a recent photo, and another about the environment and its impact on travel and landscape photography. Both are stored as drafts, along with a few rainy-day subjects ... but I really want to get these two finished before too much time passes, so I've barely looked at the upgrade.
2nd January, 3:46 pm GMT
Looks like the latest version of Wordpress takes on board my hack for MySQL downtime
Nice one.db
2nd January, 7:26 pm GMT
Forrest - The upgrade process tends to be hit and miss. If it all goes smoothly, it's a matter of minutes (No problem!), but if just one plugin is incompatible, it's a pain in the neck. I tend to not bother taking that risk unless it's really worthwhile... (I'll wait and upgrade straight to 2.3.3 when it comes out.
)
David - I haven't seen the error page on a live site yet, but I guess you must be quite glad now then.
2nd January, 9:32 pm GMT
I think I may do the same. I've modified some of the core files, for example to nofollow my tag cloud. I don't have any plugins ( other than Akismet ) running at the moment, but this will force me to re-edit a few files that I really don't want to make a habit of changing. Not so much for the risk, which I don't want to deal with, but because it's a pain!
2nd January, 11:44 pm GMT
Yeah, it's too much of a hassle to be productive a lot of the time.
11th January, 3:06 am GMT
There is nothing more annoying than a blog that only says something to the affect of "Undergoing Maintenance - Will Be Back Soon." I mean, is it that hard to provide some more information?I can remember a blog we used to read and it said this for some time. I finally quit going back because I was so frustrated with the lack of information they were providing. Not very good customer service!
11th January, 7:03 pm GMT
Agreed. When you have no idea when (or even if!) a site is coming back, you begin to lose patience (And trust) in it altogether.
Freelancing Money (the site I mentioned above) is down again at the minute, but at least it has more information this time (Though I'd have liked an email address so I could send my good wishes to him
)
15th January, 3:57 pm GMT
great ideas here. i especially like the games idea!
15th January, 11:33 pm GMT
Paul - We all enjoy a good game, eh?
2nd March, 7:08 pm GMT
A belated "Thank You" since you spurred me to change my soon to be biz blog site's home page. A bit different then "Future site of ..." Wouldn't have thought of it until this article!
2nd March, 8:47 pm GMT
Natasha,
It looks great. Well done
28th February, 9:58 am GMT
Visitors and readers are bloggers assets. We write good contents, they read all of them, they love it, they subscribe to our RSS, and they visit again. That's how faithful readers brings traffics to our blog. And we need to look after their heart especially when our blog is down. All the tips described above are all good to be implemented.