Load shedding should not take your website or email offline, as long as they are hosted in a professional hosting facility rather than on a computer or server in your own office. Hosting providers plan for power interruptions; your office usually can't. What load shedding does affect is your ability to update the site, answer email and reach customers, so the real work is making your own side resilient.
This guide explains where the risk actually sits, what to ask a host, and the practical steps within your control.
Where load shedding actually hurts
Think of your online presence as a chain. Each link can fail independently:
| Link | Affected by load shedding in your area? | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting server (website, email, database) | Depends on the facility's backup power | Your hosting provider |
| DNS | Only if hosted on a single local machine | Your DNS provider |
| Your office internet (fibre, ONT, router) | Yes, unless on backup power | You |
| Your laptop and phone | Battery-dependent | You |
| Your visitors' connections | Yes, in their area | Nobody (but mobile data usually keeps working) |
| Cellular towers | Sometimes, when tower batteries run flat | Mobile networks |
The server itself is the link you most want professionally managed. If it sits in a proper facility with backup power, a stage-six evening in your suburb doesn't matter to your website at all.
The biggest risk - hosting in the office
Some businesses still run their website, email or accounting system on a machine in a back room. During load shedding that server either goes dark or runs on a small UPS that buys minutes, not hours. When it goes down:
- Your website is unreachable for everyone, including customers in areas with power.
- Email sent to you may bounce or queue at the sender's side.
- Remote staff can't reach shared files.
- Repeated hard power-offs risk file-system corruption and database damage.
Moving public-facing services (website, email, anything customers depend on) to a hosting provider removes this risk. It also removes the cost and maintenance of inverters, batteries and replacement parts for that server.
What to ask a hosting provider
Every serious host plans for power failures, but you should still ask. Useful questions:
- Where are the servers physically located? South African hosting keeps latency low for local visitors; see hosting in South Africa vs overseas for the full trade-offs.
- What backup power does the facility use? Ask in general terms: UPS, generators, fuel arrangements.
- What happens if a server fails anyway? How are sites restored, and how quickly?
- How are backups stored and how often do they run?
- How do they communicate during incidents? A status page or email updates.
Be wary of anyone who promises that nothing can ever go down. Good providers describe how they reduce risk and recover from failure, not that failure is impossible.
Backups are your insurance
Power events are one of many causes of data loss, along with hardware faults, bad updates and human error. Whatever your hosting, have backups you can restore:
- Know how often your host backs up and how long copies are kept. On NewHost app hosting, Starter plans get weekly backups kept for 4 weeks; Developer gets daily backups kept for 7 days; Business and Agency get daily backups kept for 30 days. You can also take on-demand backups before risky changes.
- Keep your own copy of anything irreplaceable: a periodic database export and your site files or Git repository.
- Test a restore occasionally. A backup you've never restored is a hope, not a plan.
Our guide to a website backup strategy covers the 3-2-1 approach in detail.
Keep your own side running
Even with the website safely hosted, load shedding can stop you from working. The things within your control:
Keep your internet up
Fibre ONTs and routers draw little power, so a small router UPS can keep your connection alive through a typical outage, provided the fibre network in your area also stays powered. Check what your ISP says about their equipment.
Have a mobile data fallback
If fibre drops, tethering to a phone or using an LTE/5G router keeps you online. Mobile towers can also lose power during long outages, so no single fallback is perfect.
Use email that lives on a server, not a PC
With IMAP email hosted on a proper server, messages keep arriving while your office is dark, and you can read and reply on your phone. If your mail client uses POP3 and deletes messages from the server, a flat laptop means no access. IMAP vs POP3 explains the difference.
Make updates from anywhere
If your site deploys from Git, you can push a fix from any machine with a connection. With a control panel like Plesk, you can log in from your phone to check things.
Help visitors who have no power
Your customers are dealing with load shedding too, often on mobile data with weak signal. You can make the site easier to use in those conditions:
- Keep pages light. Compress images and avoid huge scripts; people on patchy mobile connections will thank you. See speeding up your website for South African visitors.
- Make key information easy to find. Trading hours, contact numbers, and whether you're open during outages.
- Offer WhatsApp or phone alternatives to forms, in case a customer's connection drops mid-submission.
- Save form progress where possible on long forms.
A simple load-shedding checklist
- Website, email and databases hosted in a professional facility, not the office
- Know where your backups are and how often they run
- Own copy of irreplaceable data, restored at least once as a test
- UPS on router/ONT, and a mobile data fallback
- Email on IMAP, accessible from your phone
- Lightweight, mobile-friendly site
- Contact details and trading status easy to find
Frequently asked questions
Does load shedding switch off websites?
Not websites hosted in proper hosting facilities, which plan for power interruptions. Websites running on servers in homes or offices can go down when the power goes off. Your visitors may lose access if their power and connection fail, but your site stays up for everyone else.
Will I miss emails during load shedding?
If your email is hosted on a mail server, messages keep arriving while your office is off. You'll see them when your connection returns, or immediately on your phone. If your mail server is in your office and it loses power, sending servers usually retry for a while, but long outages can cause bounces.
Should I move my server out of the office because of load shedding?
For anything customers or remote staff rely on, usually yes. Hosting providers handle backup power, cooling and connectivity at a scale an office can't match, and you avoid the risk of damage from repeated power cuts.
Is hosting overseas safer from load shedding?
Overseas hosting avoids local grid issues, but local hosting in a properly powered facility also isn't affected by your area's schedule. Local hosting gives lower latency for South African visitors and rand billing, so weigh those factors too.
Want your website and email off the office power grid? See NewHost web hosting and business email hosting, hosted on servers in Johannesburg with local support.