What to Do When Your Website Goes Down

Written as a checklist, because if you're reading this you probably don't want an essay.

The short answer — work through these in order

• Confirm it's actually down for everyone, not just you. Use an “is it down” checker, or your phone on mobile data.
• Check your email — for a suspended hosting account, an expired domain, or a failed payment. This causes more outages than anything technical.
• Check your hosting provider's status page — if their infrastructure is down, it isn't your site and you can stop looking.
• Ask what changed — an update, a plugin, an edit, a DNS change in the last 24 hours. Recent change is the most likely culprit.
• Contact your host, then your developer.

Most outages are one of five things: an expired domain, an unpaid hosting invoice, a host outage, a bad update, or an expired SSL certificate.

The two that catch people out

An expired domain. The renewal email went to an address you no longer check, or the card on file expired. The site vanishes with no warning and no error that explains itself. Check your registrar first — it's a five-minute fix and it's embarrassingly common.

An unpaid hosting invoice. Same story. Hosts suspend accounts for non-payment and the notice often lands in spam. Neither is technical. Both look identical to a catastrophic failure from the outside.

Reading what you're seeing

The error tells you something:

• “This site can't be reached” or a DNS error — usually domain or DNS, not the site itself
• 500 error — the server reached your site and something in it broke. Often a recent update or plugin
• 403 forbidden — permissions, or a security tool blocking access
• Account suspended page — billing, almost always
• Site loads but looks broken — usually not down at all; a CSS or asset issue, often after an update
• Security warning instead of the site — an expired SSL certificate, or the site has been flagged

Who to call, in what order

Your host first, for anything that looks like server, suspension or DNS. They can see things you can't, and it's included in what you pay them.

Your developer second, for anything that broke after a change to the site itself.

Your domain registrar if the domain has lapsed — sometimes a different company from your host, which is why people forget it exists.

If you can't reach any of them because they hold all the access, that's a different problem, and it's the one worth fixing once the site is back. Taking over a website from another developer is the route out.

After it's back: the ten minutes that prevent the next one

• Turn on auto-renew for domain and hosting, with a card that isn't about to expire
• Point billing notices at an address you actually read
• Set up uptime monitoring — free tools will email you when the site stops responding, so you find out before a customer does
• Note what caused it. Outages repeat when nobody writes down why.

When you don't need a developer

If it was a lapsed domain, an unpaid invoice, or a host-side outage, you don't need anyone technical. Pay it, renew it, or wait it out. Developers get called for plenty of outages that were a billing email in a spam folder, and I'd rather you check that first.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my website suddenly down?

Most commonly: an expired domain, unpaid hosting, a host outage, a recent update that broke something, or an expired SSL certificate. Check the first two before assuming anything technical.

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

Use an online “is it down” checker, or open it on your phone using mobile data rather than your own wi-fi. Local caching and DNS make sites look down when they aren't.

Who do I contact when my website goes down?

Host first for server, suspension or DNS issues. Developer second if something broke after a change. Registrar if the domain has lapsed.

How long does it take to fix a website that's down?

Billing and domain issues resolve in minutes to a few hours once paid, though DNS can take longer to propagate. A broken update is usually quick if there's a recent backup. A compromised site takes longest, because it needs cleaning properly rather than just restoring.

How can I stop my website going down again?

Auto-renew on domain and hosting, billing notices to an address you read, uptime monitoring, and a tested backup before any change. How often a website should be backed up covers the last one.

Where to start

If the site is down right now, check your email and your registrar before anything else — that's where most of these end. If you've done that and it's still dark, send me the address and what you've already checked. Get in touch.