For optimists, disasters and mistakes happen to teach us about prevention. Life is about learning from our mistakes, right? As reported on AZCentral.com, GoDaddy was in hot water for creating a six-hour massive outage for millions of websites because of company infrastructure problems and a router issue. Whether your site was affected or not, the infamous digital disaster taught us some grand lessons. Implement emergency recovery plans, apply protective strategies and deal with deep breaths and calming thoughts. Disasters happen!

Lesson 1: Prepare for the Worst

The Internet community is now more than ever aware that sites can go down, and for hours, and it’s not only not good, it’s bad–really bad. The outage was a reminder that websites aren’t immune from technical hiccups and catastrophes that can result in lost data, leads, time and money as well as sensitive information exposure.

Even if you lack what it is to be tech savvy, it doesn’t hurt to know about all of the possible ways your site, your most valuable virtual possession, could be destroyed, attacked or simply make you scream out in frustration.

Dodge site disasters by preparing for:

• Hackers and security risks

• Server crashes and corrupted data

• Slow loading and error pages

• Insufficient and unreliable storage

Lesson 2: Seek Prevention Over Damage Control

Preventing hackers from attacking your website is way more fun than trying to restore your website after it’s been hacked. Protecting your website from hacking experts starts with making your website less weak and vulnerable. Your site, the Web and DNS records all contribute to how a hacker can get into your hardware, software, back-end, and internal systems. TechRadar.com’s tutorial suggests giving special attention to your site’s ‘robots.txt’ file. You could have a ‘robots.txt’ full of public directories and private files that are indexed by search engines. As a result, this file is open information to hackers by a simple Googly query.

Sageguard your systems by:

• Removing private files and directories from your server and ‘robots.txt’ file
• Exposing fake directories and false security systems
• Creating artificial stories that lead hackers to nonexistent software
• Requiring account users to confirm registration through an email

Lesson 3: Back Up Your Data for Loss Mitigation

Invest in a sophisticated data backup plan. You’ll be glad you did if your server, and subsequently your entire world, come crashing down. Online backup will save you from out-of-this-world frustration, monumental time lost and costly repairs. A server crash is a processing error that terminates the server’s process. A software application fails. An operation system fails. A hardware device fails. Anything from too many bad plugins to receiving a large amount of traffic in a short amount of time can crash a server. During system failure or bulk data transfer, losing confidential data is a major risk. Insecure or lost data can be devastating. Choosing to back up your data ensures that daily files are stored in several hard drives. Data can be rebuilt and restored to main hard drives.

Minimize data disasters with first-rate backup solutions that provide the following:

• Sophisticated remote or offsite storage locations
• Existing Internet bandwidth capabilities
• A customizable backup schedule
• Instant data encryption and storage
• Backup monitoring and reporting

Look for a provider that has:

• Unrestricted uploads and downloads
• Excellent uptime
• Multiple-tiered, high-speed Internet
• Fully redundant storage

Lesson 4: Minimize Error Pages

An error page, also known as “Page not found,” is called Error 404. Users looking for a page on your site that’s unavailable are referred to an Error 404 page. An error page is issued when the server fails to fulfill the request and signals an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) standard status code. The server couldn’t find a specific location and its status is unclear. About 7% of visits on any website will refer users to an error page.

404errorpages.com suggest the following three 404-error prevention solutions:

• Log files help track 404 errors. Accessing log files and the HTTP status code field provides info that can help you rectify any problems. You can check out inconsistencies, error frequency and any broken links or misspelled URLs.
• An .htaccess file installation can redirect a consistent error page to a new page. A 301 redirect is a safe solution that won’t threaten your page’s ranking on a search engine.
• If you want to keep frequently changing pages on your site from being indexed, use a robots.txt file to block search engines.

What’s the big deal? The goal of your website or blog is to swiftly meet the needs of your customers or turn visitors into returning ones by offering informative or entertaining content. A page that a visitor can’t access is just as frustrating, even disastrous, as not being able to access a website that is down. Because of the visitor’s frustration, they’re less likely to continue searching and trust your site as a credible and reliable source. Testing your pages and speeding up the load time don’t hurt either.

Lesson 5: Consider Your Data Storage Space

Storage refers to the physical space that technical equipment  and servers occupy as well as the Web-based storage that virtually stores files and data. Both storage types are sensitive. For organizations with extensive amounts of data, a storage room may need to be insulated, climate-controlled and cooled. To save space and eliminate technical maintenance, a third-party provider can provide secure online storage. Cloud storage and server space will be where all your data and files are contained. Ensure that your Web host meets your data storage quota, including additional space for site growth and increased traffic.

As you shop for sufficient and dependable cloud storage, keep in mind the following tips:

• Cloud storage platforms should match your site’s performance needs; consider your backup, archiving and production data needs.
• Standard-based integration has maximum ease of use and is less costly as you put your content online.

Withum, Smith+Brown, PC, a certified public multi-office accounting and consulting firm in New Jersey, migrated to cloud backup storage and stated that the technology, “dramatically improved the security and privacy of our client data,” according to AccountingWeb.com. Furthermore, cloud storage can protect data during operational disruptions and natural disasters. Store records in various offsite locations with automated online systems.

Lesson 6: Communicate with Your Readers and Customers

Despite your best efforts to prevent malfunctions and failures, technological disasters happen to the best of us. Communication lets users know you’re fixing it. Refer to your social networking sites or send a message to your mailing list informing customers and readers that you’re aware of the problem. Explain what you know and even what you don’t. You’re less likely to be discredited or lose integrity if you take accountability and remain honest – Lesson 7: Make No Excuses.

With a diverse career that initiated over a decade ago at iCrossing, a global digital agency that sold for over $325 million in June of 2010 to Hearst Corporation, Andrew Bart has a deep-rooted understanding of innovative Internet marketing solutions.  Andrew’s entrepreneurial knowledge of Content Marketing, SEO, Off Page SEO, Social Media, Inbound Marketing, PPC, Lead Generation, Analytics, and Mobile Marketing is pervasively respected by his peers in the Internet industry.  To learn more about Andrew, connect with him on LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter

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