Is my website down? How to check in two minutes

To check if your website is down, open it on your phone with Wi-Fi turned off, so it loads over mobile data instead of your office connection. If it opens there, the site is up and the problem is your computer or your office network. If it fails there too, the site is probably down for everyone, and the exact error message on the screen tells you which company to call.

Step 1: rule out your own connection

Most "my website is down" moments are not the website at all. Before you call anyone, do these three things in order.

1. Open another site, such as google.com, on the same computer. If that fails too, your internet connection is the problem, not your website.
2. Try your phone on mobile data. Turn Wi-Fi off in your phone's settings, then type your full web address into the browser. Mobile data reaches your site by a different route from your office.
3. Try a private window. In Chrome, that is a New Incognito window; in Edge, a New InPrivate window; in Safari, a New Private Window. It opens your site without the stored copies and cookies your browser keeps, which sometimes hold on to an old error.

If the site works on your phone but not on your office computer, the trouble sits on your side: the office router, a firewall, or an old saved setting in that one computer. Restarting the router fixes this more often than anyone likes to admit.

Step 2: ask an outside checker

There are free "is it down" websites that try to load your address from their own servers in several places and report whether it answered. Search for "website down checker" and pick any well-known one; you only type your address, no account needed.

They are useful for one thing: a second opinion from outside your building. If the checker says your site is up while it fails for you, look again at Step 1. If it says down, the problem is real and it is time to read the error.

Step 3: read the error on the screen

The page your browser shows when a site fails is not random. Each kind points to a different part of the chain, and therefore to a different company.

"This site can't be reached" or "server not found"

Often with a code such as DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN. DNS is the internet's address book: it turns your domain name into the location of the computer that holds your site. This error means the address book has no entry for your domain.

The usual cause is a domain that has expired, or DNS settings someone changed or deleted. Call the company where your domain is registered first. Domain renewal: what happens if your domain expires explains the grace period and how to get it back quickly.

"Your connection is not private"

A full-page warning, sometimes with a code mentioning a certificate or a date. The site may be working fine underneath, but its security certificate, the thing behind the padlock, has expired or does not match the address. Customers see a scary page and leave.

Call whoever hosts the site. Most hosts renew certificates automatically, and this error usually means the renewal failed or the domain was pointed somewhere new. HTTPS and the padlock explains what the certificate does.

"500 Internal Server Error", "503 Service Unavailable" or a blank white page

The address book worked and your host's computer answered, but the site itself crashed or the server was too busy. On WordPress sites this often follows an automatic plugin update. A 503 can also mean the host is doing maintenance.

Call your host or your designer. If you manage the site yourself, the host's support team can usually see the error log and tell you which part failed.

"404 Not Found" on the home page

The server is up, but the page is missing. This happens when files were deleted, a site was moved and not finished, or a builder subscription lapsed and the pages were taken offline. Call whoever builds or hosts the site.

A page you did not make

A page saying the domain is parked, for sale, or "coming soon", often with ads. That usually means the domain expired and the registrar has replaced your site with its own holding page, or the domain is pointing at the wrong place after a change. Call the registrar today, because expired domains move toward being released after a while.

A warning that the site is dangerous

A red full-page warning about deceptive or harmful content means Google or the browser has flagged the site as hacked. The site is not down; it is worse. Read website security and Google warnings and contact your host straight away.

Step 4: know who to call

The error tells you which link in the chain broke. Here is who usually holds each link.

• The domain registrar, the company you renew your domain name with, for "can't be reached" errors and parked pages.
• The host, the company whose computers run your site, for 500 and 503 errors, certificate warnings and very slow pages.
• The builder, for sites on Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy's builder or Shopify, where the builder is also the host. Their status page and support chat are the first stop.
• Your designer, if they manage the site for you and hold the logins.

If you do not know who any of these are, that is the real problem to fix once the site is back. How to find who hosts your website walks through finding them.

Is it down, or is it just slow?

A site that takes half a minute to open is not technically down, but your customers treat it as if it were. Try it on your phone at a few different times of day. If it is slow every time, ask your host whether your plan is overloaded or the site has grown too heavy. A free check at PageSpeed Insights shows how long the main parts of your page take to appear on a phone.

How to hear about it before customers do

Most owners find out their site is down when a customer mentions it. A few easy habits catch it sooner.

• Open your own site on your phone once a week, the way a customer would. It takes ten seconds.
• Turn on auto-renew for your domain and keep the card on file current. Expired domains cause more outages for small businesses than anything technical.
• Read emails from your registrar and host. Renewal warnings and failed-payment notices often land in a spam folder.
• Use a free uptime monitor. Several services check your site every few minutes and email you when it stops answering. Your host may offer one too.

What to do this week

• Write down your registrar, host and designer, with a phone number or support link for each.
• Check the expiry date of your domain and turn on auto-renew.
• Open your site on your phone over mobile data and in a private window.
• Set up one free uptime alert that emails an inbox you actually read.
• Save this checklist somewhere you will find it on a bad day.

If your site keeps falling over and every fix is a phone call to someone else, it may be time to look at something sturdier; you can see your site rebuilt first and compare before you decide anything.