Looking at the Internet as a whole, websites are crashing all the time, and they are doing it in droves. Why would your website ever crash? There are oh so many reasons…

1. Digg/Slashdot – It got Digged and/or Slashdotted.
2. Cable tripping – Someone who probably shouldn’t be walking around in a server room trips on a cable.
3. Jolt Cola – Someone spills coffee or Jolt Cola on the web server, or, if things are really bad, beer.
4. Pure Enthusiasm – Your boss gets whiff of a new feature and says, “Just install it! What could possibly go wrong?”
5. DDoS attack – An angry, angst-ridden teenager launches a DDoS attack on your website.
6. Web server upgrade – Your web host upgrades the web server. Nobody told you and now nothing works. This is strongly connected to point 4…
7. Police raid – It happened to The Pirate Bay…
8. Bandwidth – Your web host decides you have consumed enough bandwidth this month and cuts you off.
9. Burnout – Your web server decides to spontaneously combust.
10. Blame it on the weather – The next big hurricane hits the US East Coast.