“504 Gateway Timeout” what does it mean and how can you prevent it?
Running an eCommerce website can be a highly lucrative venture, but it comes with challenges. How do you avoid a “504 Gateway Timeout” and prevent eCommerce website crashing?
Experiencing an eCommerce website crashing is one of the most significant challenges online companies face. It can lead to lost sales, frustrated customers, and even reputational damage.
Therefore, proactive measures must be taken to ensure your website stays up and running.
Most commonly, websites crash due to high traffic and not being able to handle the demand, insufficient speed to load efficiently, or cyber-criminal activity due to a lack of security.
And the good news is, these are all things which are simple to avoid!
We’ve all heard the saying, “Prevention is better than cure”. If you don’t have all the right tools and solutions in place, fixing a website crash, when it happens, is extremely difficult.
To prevent your website from crashing, you need to have expert resources set up ready to automatically detect and fix any potential issues which would cause your website to crash.
The quality of your hosting provider can play a significant role in the performance of your website. Cheap or unreliable hosting can result in slow website load times, turning potential customers away. By investing in a quality web hosting team with the right expertise, sufficient resources, and excellent uptime guarantees, you significantly reduce the likelihood of a website crash.
A faster website will improve the user experience and reduce the likelihood of a website crash.
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are faster and more reliable than traditional hard drives. Using SSD storage helps improve your website’s load times, reduce the risk of data loss, and improve your site’s overall performance.
Check your hosting provider uses SDDs. If they aren’t using SDDs, they likely won’t be able to keep up with your website traffic and are holding you back from growing your eCommerce business!
Utilising a caching tool, such as HA Edge, decreases the likelihood of a website crash, especially during peak traffic periods.
It does this by reducing the load on your server, thereby improving your website’s performance by caching frequently accessed pages.
As a result, your website or web application will load faster, reducing the strain on your server and thus minimising the chance of your website crashing.
Downtime can be costly. Having access to expert support 24/7 is invaluable in monitoring your site to detect any potential issues and prevent website crashes.
Choosing a hosting provider which offers round-the-clock support is the best way to have any issues resolved quickly.
Avoiding any website issues requires a proactive approach. Investing in good quality hosting, utilising caching, and having access to expert support can significantly reduce the likelihood of an impact on your business.
If you would like to speak to one of our engineers for advice on how to avoid your eCommerce website crashing, don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you want more information on 504 Gateway Timeout, see here.