Nothing could be more frustrating than waking up one morning to find that your website isn’t online anymore. All that effort you put into creating a site that was, until the previous night, the perfect tool for your business or personal plans is replaced by a single page that displays a message akin to “This website is no longer available due to …[some reason].”
It might not be too bad if it were simply a website that you used to post personal updates on and served as something of a hobby. But if it is a business website and you depended on it to make a living by, every second that it is down could mean the loss of a potential client who could have ended up being your best customer.
So, let us see some of the most common reasons that could make your hosting provider suspend your account in the hopes that you will be able to prevent it from happening:
- You Didn’t Pay: although it might seem too obvious, you’d be surprised at the number of people who forget to renew their hosting subscriptions because they didn’t enable the auto-renew function in their hosting control panel, didn’t receive account expiry notification emails because it went straight to their junk mail or simply ignored all the correspondences that came from their hosting providers.
A quick settlement of bills should have your site up and running in a matter of minutes.
- Malware Detected: malicious software (malware) can be harmful to visitors to your site as well as to your hosting provider and their clients. Now, malware doesn’t just mean intentionally-created software that do damage or those that are created to steal information from visitors. On the contrary, any error in your site’s configuration or the scripts you use could be seen as a threat if they compromise safety or function improperly.
Either way, even if your hosting provider doesn’t shut you down search engines will block your site with a “Warning: Visiting this site might harm your computer” message or something like it.
The best way to go about handling this issue is to start from scratch: clean your website out and re-upload everything taking care to ensure all configurations and scripts are working fine. Of course, this only works if you keep regular backups and have a clean version of your site saved somewhere else.
- Illegal Content, Trademark or Copyright Infringements: if you are selling or sharing anything that doesn’t belong to you or is considered illegal (illicit drugs, pornography, etc.), your hosting provider will shut you down and fast. They won’t want to get in hot water over your trespasses. But that shouldn’t be the worst of your worries; someone might come knocking on your door with a warrant in hand – that’s what should worry you.
Get rid of it all… now! (Of course, it could already be too late.)
- Exceeding Your Limits: if you were too frugal when first selecting your hosting plan you could be paying dearly for it now. Overusing your storage and bandwidth limits could be tolerated in case of infrequent spikes and surges of traffic. But when it becomes a regular occurrence it means you have outgrown your plan.
This one’s easy; keep monitoring your data and traffic and move to a higher plan once you’ve reached your limits.
- Electronic Delinquency: spamming, phishing, hacking, illegal monitoring and access of other networks or even other accounts on your hosting provider’s server – all these lead to suspension of accounts without prejudice.
There’s only one thing to do: Just don’t do it.
- Threats or Verbal Abuse of Hosting Provider Employees: there are times when tempers flare up when things aren’t going your way. You could be in the middle of getting a configuration on your account setup and feel like the guys at support aren’t doing their job. That doesn’t mean you can go ballistic on them. For one, it doesn’t help with finding the solution and, secondly, it could get you kicked out.
Always be courteous and polite to your support techs because, for the most part, they really are there to help you. Politeness could get you much more than angry words. If you think you’re not getting what you want there’s always someone to escalate your problems to – climb up the chain of command. If you still haven’t had the issue resolved by the time you reach the top, maybe you should start thinking about politely changing providers.
- You Have Been Hacked: any website can be hacked, if we are to believe the news headlines. If your site has been compromised it can be used to carry out further attacks, your clients’ personal data could be accessed and your provider’s servers could be put at risk – all good reasons for the suspension of your account – even though you might not entirely be at fault here.
Always make use of all the safety and security features that are offered by your hosting provider – even if it means paying a little more to add to it all. Make sure your software and applications are regularly updated. Take all necessary precautions to secure your administrative accounts and privileges.
Running a website is no easy task. But with the right mindset and by taking the necessary precautions, you can have great working relationship with your hosting provider.
