Web site downtime cost UK businesses more £565 million in 2001 and is set to cost even more this year.

A study by analysts Yankee Group, commissioned by hosting firm Worldport, estimates the direct cost of Web site downtime will reach £715 million this year, 26 per cent up on last year.

Factor in other indirect costs, such as loss of reputation, lost future sales and the cost of storing unsold goods, the overall bill will likely to run into - ooh - billions, Yankee reckons.

The major causes of Web site downtime are both technical - such as power outages, network failure, application problems and lax security - and human - such as inadequate staffing and monitoring or a lack of recovery planning, according to Yankee.

These causes are magnified in-house, according to the report, which recommends firms to consider external hosting in order to build more robust Web infrastructures. ®

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