Website down? A 10-minute checklist

1. Make sure it is not only you

Try the site on your phone with Wi-Fi switched off, or run a check from outside your network. If it loads elsewhere, the problem is your own connection, your network or a stale address your computer has remembered.

2. Find out which part is failing

Every visit to a website has three steps, and a check from outside tells you which one broke.

• The name lookup fails. The domain name no longer points anywhere. Look at your domain registration and your DNS records.
• The secure connection fails. The certificate has expired or does not match the domain. Renew or reinstall it.
• The page does not answer, or answers with an error. The server or the application behind it has a problem.

3. If it is the domain name

• Sign in at your registrar and check that the domain has not expired.
• Check that the name servers are the ones your DNS provider gave you.
• Check that the record for your site still exists and points to the right address.

4. If it is the server

• Look at your hosting company's status page. They may already know.
• Think about what changed last: an update, a new plugin, a deployment, a full disk.
• Restart the web server or the application if you can, and read its error log.
• If you cannot find it within a few minutes, open a ticket with your host and include the exact error.

5. Tell people, then make sure you hear first next time

A short note on social media or a status page saves your customers from guessing. Once the site is back, set up monitoring so the next outage reaches you by email within a couple of minutes, not through a customer.

• How uptime monitoring works
• More guides