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My site is down.

Posted in BPP Blog

The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the irritating,

Caller: Help! My site is down.

Me: Lemme check . I’m looking at the site now, and it’s working fine. Are you able to see other sites?

Caller: Yes, I can see lots of other sites.

Me: Are you getting an error message?

Caller: No…it’s just that my site won’t come up.

Me:  What address is in the address bar?

Caller: I don’t know what you mean….

Me: At the top of your screen…it starts with “http://www…

Caller: Oh…uh…I never use that….I just click on Internet Explorer…

Me: Ok…so what does it show?

Caller: Um…well it opens and I type in… “Dave’s Music Supply” and I can’t find my site in the list.  We have to get my site back up. I thought our hosting service guaranteed 99.9% up-time. I can’t be down like this!

Me: Well, Dave, actually your site is working just fine. You’re using a search engine to find your site. Just go straight to it, it’s there. The site is up.

Caller: No, I’ve been trying it all morning it’s been down the whole time! When will it be back up? I’m losing sales every minute we’re down!

Me: Do me a favor…try this…go to the address bar…see where it says http://www.google.com? Type over that…type “http://www.davesmusicsupply.com”.

Caller: Is that an upper case “D”?

Me: It doesn’t matter

Caller: Sure it does…that’s the way it is in the logo…

Me: Ok….just type it in then and press the enter key..

Caller: Is this gonna fix it? Because I’m really counting on the website to get new business and I can’t have it not working.

Me: Well that’s what I’m trying to show you. The site IS up. Just because you’re not showing up on the first page of a Google search doesn’t mean the site is down.

Caller: But that’s how I find websites…that’s how everybody finds websites.

Me: I get that…but that doesn’t mean your site isn’t working. The site was just launched a few days ago and Google hasn’t indexed it yet.  It’s sort of like an advertisement..just because your phone number isn’t listed in the yellow pages, that doesn’t mean your phone number doesn’t work….

Caller:  Wow..you  lost me there…I’m talking about my website…my phone is working fine….Look, can you  just call me when you get the site back up?

Me: But the site IS up. Did you type your web address into the browser like I asked you to a moment ago?

Caller: Look…I’m not technical…that’s why I hired you. Do me a favor..call the hosting company as soon as we’re off the phone and get me refunded for this down-time. I gotta go, this web thing was supposed to get me new business, not take up all my time. Gotta go. Thanks, Bill!

If this conversation seems familiar and you DON’T understand why it’s posted here…the conversation may have been with you.