# My website was down for days story



## saltybeachdianne (Oct 17, 2007)

Hi All,
I have not been around in awhile but I did want to share my horrific scare when my shopping cart went down. I hope this is the correct area to post this. 
My site went live in January. 
My shopping cart was down for 2 days in early March. You could access my website, but rcvd an error when accessing the shopping product pages. It was down again for the past 5 days. I chose to have my site hosted with a local company who is a reseller. here is what I should have asked my local reseller.
1. Who host my static pages
2. Who host my shopping cart
3. Whom do I contact via telephone if anything is wrong with my site?
4. I need ftp access to backup my shopping cart database. (i have shell jewelry also and lots of information on my products) 

Here were my red flags that something was not right with my local 'reseller'
1. The automated monthly payment system was down and I had to pay via paper check via snail mail. This stayed down even after 2 months of me informing them via email.
2. Their website contact info field for the telephone number stated their phone system was being updated, hence their was not telephone contact number. hmmmmm Danger Will, Danger...
3. I never rcvd an email explaining the 1st shopping cart downtime from 2 months ago. Are ya still with me here? 

The only contact I had was with my web designer, who is also a partner with my reseller. My web designer took the brunt of everything from this past weeks fallout which also affected his numerous web businesses. 
My reseller had some emotional problems and went MIA, yes he really did, I could not make this up. It took my web designer and others a couple of days to find out who host my site etc..pay the overdue bills and get me back up and running. I am now trying to have these people keep hosting me and I will keep my same cart etc. 
It turns out I have one company who host my static pages, and a 2nd company who host my shopping cart. 

I hope this made sense. I am not technical so I tried my best to describe my 1st major website business crisis. 
Everything always works out for me though, as I have been thinking of shutting down the retail portion of my site and focusing only on wholesale anyway, as I am not capable of doing both online sales and knocking on doors. So this was my sign! 

Di


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## plan b (Feb 21, 2007)

That is just a mind blowing thing that happened to you, man that would really p-- me off,, I hope you are doing ok now and back on track.


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## saltybeachdianne (Oct 17, 2007)

Thank you...I guess I could have talked more about the emotional part....When I am in crisis mode I get really really calm. After 3 days it felt almost dreamlike. I only cried once for 5 minutes when I realized that all of the money I lost on potential sales...AND I lost on not having my shopping cart as I would have to hire a new person to do everything all over again. PHEWWW. Yes i was pissed off, but I had nobody to direct it at since my web designer was scrambling to find this guy and help my get my cart back up.. It is not fun to be pissed off and have nobody to direct it at, so I was only pissed off for maybe 3 hours. I did file a BBB complaint. 

I do hope this assist others in asking the right questions when dealing with their web designers/support people.


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

Wow Dianne, that is horrible, I probably would not be so calm hehe. And I love your site and design, I remember it when you first got it up and running. Were'nt you hosting with pro stores? did you switch to this other company? I would definately find a new host, I am sure glad you are up and running again. Its the worst when things are out of our contol to fix. Well anyways I am glad you are back up and running, I just hope you dont run into any other problems. I have not heard of two different companies hosting seperate parts of your site hmmmm.


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## peteVA (Nov 11, 2007)

It's a sad fact that hosting companies do come and go. Even large ones fail or merge or just get so slack you have to make a change. And designers and coders come and go all the time. Which is why I constantly preach using Open Source shopping carts. If you have CubeCart, OScommerce or ZenCart there is always help available.

If your designer decides to become a barber you can still get help or a new template within hours. 

And while most server folks will do daily backups, you cannot depend on it. The only person truly concerned with your data is you. It is a good idea to have a current backup of your site and your database on your PC. 

And all of your domains should be under your name. Your host may be a good friend, but if he gets hit by a bus and is dead or in the hospital and unable to pay for your domain renewal, it's gone. Not to mention how some hosts will use controlling your domain name as leverage to hold you hostage.

Yeah, it's emotional. And can cost you sales. 

You've hopefully taught some others a lesson here, Dianne.
.


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## BoniJW (Mar 8, 2008)

Wow Diane, so sorry to hear what happened to you. 

I'm actually looking to open a website in June. I found Zen Cart, anyone familiar? I see it's listed in this thread. I used to use GoDaddy with my last business and it worked great, but, I wasn't crazy about their cart.

Any input appreciated.

Thanks,
Boni


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

BoniJW said:


> Wow Diane, so sorry to hear what happened to you.
> 
> I'm actually looking to open a website in June. I found Zen Cart, anyone familiar? I see it's listed in this thread. I used to use GoDaddy with my last business and it worked great, but, I wasn't crazy about their cart.
> 
> ...


You may want to use the forum search at the top of the page to find more topics about Zen Cart. There's lots of discussion about it in other threads.


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## cookiesa (Feb 27, 2008)

The other advantage of open source software like Zencart and Cubecart is as long as your hosting company has the fantastico set up on their controlpanel you can easily instal the software with very little knowledge. You are then responsible for setting up and running your site. (It can be installed by uploading via FTP which although a little harder isn't impossible!)

Sorry you had such dramas but thanks for posting to warn others!


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