Why Is My Website Down? How to Check and What to Do

If your website won’t load, the first thing to work out is whether it’s actually offline or whether the problem is just on your end. You can check this in under a minute with a free online tool that loads your site from a different network. This article walks through that check, then how to narrow down the cause: your browser, your DNS, your hosting, or a plugin conflict.

Step 1: Check if your website is down for everyone or just you

Most “my site is down” moments turn out to be local: a cached page, a DNS hiccup on your own device, or a problem with your home wifi. The only reliable way to know for sure is to load your site from a network that isn’t yours.

The quickest way to do this:

• Switch your phone to mobile data (not wifi) and try to load your website.
• Ask someone in another location to open the site and tell you what they see.
• Use a free “down for everyone” checker, which tests your site from outside your own network.

Two simple, free tools do this job well:

• Down for Everyone or Just Me (downforeveryoneorjustme.com) – type in your website address and press the “or just me?” button. It tells you straight away whether the problem is widespread or local to you.
• IsItDownRightNow (isitdownrightnow.com) – checks your site from multiple locations and reports whether it’s reachable globally.

If you want more detail than a simple yes/no, a multi-location checker such as OnlineOrNot tests your site from several places around the world and shows the actual HTTP status code returned (for example, a 500 error or a timeout). This is useful because:

• If the checker can reach your site but your browser cannot, the fault is local to you: your device, network, ISP, VPN, firewall, or DNS cache.
• If the checker reports failures from some regions but not others, this usually points to a CDN, DNS, or routing issue rather than your hosting account being entirely offline.
• If the checker reports failures everywhere, the problem is server-side, meaning your hosting, your DNS, or something on the website itself.

A simpler sanity check, worth doing first: try loading a completely different, well-known website. If that fails too, the problem is probably with your own internet connection, not your site.

Step 2: Rule out your browser and local cache

If the checker says your site is up but you still can’t see it, your browser is probably showing you an old cached version of the page, including a cached error page from an earlier outage. Clearing the cache usually fixes this.

Quick first step: hard refresh

Before clearing anything, try a hard refresh, which forces the page to reload while skipping the cache:

• Windows/Linux: Ctrl + Shift + R
• Mac: Cmd + Shift + R

Clearing cache by browser

A common mistake is clearing history or cookies but forgetting to tick the actual cache box, or testing in one browser while clearing the cache of another. Make sure you clear the cache in the same browser you’re testing with.

Flush your local DNS cache too

Your device also keeps its own small record of where domains point, separate from the browser cache. If this is stale, clearing the browser cache won’t help. To flush it:

• Windows: open Command Prompt and run ipconfig /flushdns
• Mac: open Terminal and run sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Then try loading the site again.

Step 3: Check for a DNS problem

DNS (the Domain Name System) is what translates your domain name, such as example.com, into the server address your browser needs to connect to. If DNS is broken, your browser can’t find the server at all, even though the server itself might be running fine.

You’ll usually see an error message rather than a blank page. Common examples:

• Chrome: DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN or DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_BAD_CONFIG
• Firefox: “Hmm, we’re having trouble finding that site”
• Safari: “cannot find the server”

Common causes of DNS problems

• The domain has expired. This happens more often than people admit, usually because a renewal payment failed or the renewal notice went to an old email address. Log in to the account where the domain is registered and check the expiry date.
• DNS records are wrong or were recently changed, for example after moving to a new host. Check the A record for your main domain and the CNAME for www in your DNS provider’s dashboard to make sure they point where they should.
• Propagation delay. After any DNS change, it can take up to 48 hours for the update to reach every resolver worldwide, although most update within an hour. If you’ve just changed hosts or nameservers, this is likely why things look inconsistent.
• A stale local DNS cache on your own device, which the flush command above should resolve.

For background on how DNS records work, see DNS records explained: A, NS, MX, CNAME and SRV records.

How to check DNS yourself

You don’t need technical skills for this. Use a free propagation checker such as whatsmydns.net or dnschecker.org:

1. Enter your domain name.
2. Select the “A” record type from the dropdown.
3. Click Search.

You’ll see the IP address your domain resolves to from various locations worldwide. If the address shown doesn’t match what your host expects, or results vary wildly between locations, your DNS hasn’t finished propagating or is misconfigured. If you recently added or changed DNS records, such as a TXT record for domain verification, our step-by-step guide to adding a TXT record covers the same dashboard most DNS providers use.

Step 4: Check for a hosting or server problem

If the checker in Step 1 confirms the site is down for everyone, and DNS looks fine, the problem is most likely with the hosting account or the server itself. Signs that point this way include:

• A generic error page from your host rather than a browser DNS error, such as “502 Bad Gateway”, “503 Service Unavailable”, or “Internal Server Error”.
• The site works at some times of day and not others, which can suggest the server is overloaded.
• You’ve received a notice about exceeding resource limits, an unpaid invoice, or a security suspension.

Things worth checking before contacting support:

• Log in to your hosting control panel directly (not through your website) to see if there’s a visible notice about an outage or suspension.
• Check whether a recent update, backup job, or migration was scheduled around the time the site went down.
• If you’re on shared hosting, be aware that very high traffic or a resource-heavy plugin on your own site can occasionally cause temporary slowdowns, which is a resourcing issue rather than an outage. Our guide on how resources are managed on shared hosting explains how this generally works.

Step 5: Check for a plugin or theme conflict (WordPress sites)

If your site shows a white screen, a PHP error message, or a broken layout rather than a connection error, the cause is often something on the website itself, most commonly a plugin or theme that has just been updated.

Steps to check this:

1. Note what you changed recently: installed a plugin, updated a theme, or edited code. Problems often start right after an update.
2. If you can still access the WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins and deactivate recently updated or installed plugins one at a time, checking the site after each one.
3. If you can’t reach the dashboard, rename the plugins folder via FTP or your hosting file manager. This deactivates all plugins at once so you can confirm whether one of them is the cause.
4. Switch to a default WordPress theme temporarily to rule out a theme conflict.
5. Check for a white screen with no error message at all, often called the “White Screen of Death”, which usually points to a PHP error or memory limit issue rather than a hosting outage.

Keeping plugins, themes and WordPress core updated reduces how often these conflicts happen in the first place. See why you should keep your website software up to date for more on this. If security plugins or unusual activity are involved, it’s also worth reviewing how to protect your WordPress website from hackers.

Putting it all together: a quick diagnostic order

FAQ

How do I know if my website is down for everyone or just me?

Use a free checker such as Down for Everyone or Just Me or IsItDownRightNow, which load your site from outside your own network. You can also simply try your mobile data instead of wifi, or ask someone elsewhere to check. If it loads fine for them, the problem is local to your device or network.

Why does my website show a DNS error but my host says everything is fine?

DNS errors usually mean the domain isn’t pointing where it should, not that the server itself is broken. Check whether the domain has expired, whether DNS records were recently changed, and allow up to 48 hours for propagation after any change, since most resolvers update within an hour but some take longer.

My WordPress site shows a blank white screen. What does that mean?

A blank white screen with no error message, often called the White Screen of Death, usually points to a PHP error, a plugin or theme conflict, or a memory limit being reached, rather than a hosting outage. Deactivating recently updated plugins one at a time, or switching to a default theme, usually identifies the cause.

How long should I wait before contacting my host about downtime?

Once you’ve confirmed the site is down for everyone (not just you), ruled out an expired domain, and checked there isn’t an obvious DNS misconfiguration, it’s reasonable to contact your host. Have the exact error message and the time the problem started ready, as this speeds up diagnosis.

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