Is my website down? A 10-minute checklist to find out why

When a website stops loading, every minute costs visitors, sales and trust. The good news: almost every outage comes down to one of five causes, and you can find which one in about ten minutes.

Step 1: Is it down for everyone, or just you?

Open the website checker and enter your domain. It loads the page from our server, not your computer. If the check says Reachable: Yes, the site works and the problem is on your side: try another browser, mobile data instead of Wi-Fi, or clear your DNS cache.

Step 2: Read the HTTP status code

The status code tells you who is at fault:

• 200 OK: the page works.
• 301 / 302: the page redirects. Fine, as long as it ends on a 200.
• 403 Forbidden: the server refuses access. Often file permissions or a security plugin or firewall rule.
• 404 Not Found: the address doesn't exist. See our guide to fixing broken links.
• 500 Internal Server Error: the code crashed. Check the error log in your hosting panel.
• 502 / 504: a proxy or CDN (such as Cloudflare) can't reach your server, or it answers too slowly.
• 503 Service Unavailable: maintenance mode, overload, or a hosting resource limit.

Step 3: Check DNS

If the checker says the domain doesn't resolve, DNS is broken: the domain may have expired, the nameservers may have changed, or the A record points to an old server. Our guide to DNS records shows what each record should look like, and the domain expiry guide shows how to check the renewal date.

Step 4: Check SSL

An expired or wrong certificate makes browsers show a full-page warning, which looks like an outage to visitors. See what to do when an SSL certificate expires.

Step 5: Check the server

1. Log in to your hosting panel and look for a resource limit warning (CPU, memory, processes).
2. Open the error log and read the last lines.
3. Restart the application or PHP service.
4. If you changed a plugin, theme or code just before the outage, roll it back.

Stop finding out from customers

Most site owners hear about downtime from an angry email. Uptime monitoring checks your site every few minutes and emails you after two failed checks in a row, so you can fix it before most visitors notice.