Someone says your site isn't loading. You open it on your phone — and it works. So is it down or not?
"Is my website down?" is one of the most searched phrases about website problems. The answer isn't always obvious. Sometimes it's just you. Sometimes it's your host, your DNS, or a bad deploy. This guide walks you through how to check if your site is really down, rule out local issues, and fix the most common causes.
How to Check If a Website Is Down (Quick Answer)
To check whether a website is really down — not just down for you — confirm the outage from outside your network:
- Open the site from a different network — switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data, or try from another device. If it works on one network but not the other, the problem is local (your ISP, router, or DNS cache).
- Use an independent "is it down" checker — a service that pings the URL from multiple global locations. If they report the site as up but you can't reach it, it's on your end.
- Try a different DNS resolver — switch to
1.1.1.1(Cloudflare) or8.8.8.8(Google) to bypass a cached or poisoned local DNS record. - Flush your local DNS cache —
ipconfig /flushdnson Windows,sudo dscacheutil -flushcacheon macOS. - Check the host status page — if your provider (AWS, Cloudflare, Vercel, etc.) is having an incident, the outage isn't yours to fix.
If multi-location checks confirm the site is genuinely down, follow the step-by-step troubleshooting below to identify the cause: DNS, SSL, host/server, or a recent change.
Website Down Checker: Is It Down, or Just Down for You?
The single most important question is whether the site is down for everyone or just you. A website down checker answers that by requesting your URL from servers outside your own network — if those external checks fail too, the outage is real.
There are two kinds of checker you can use:
- One-off "is it down right now?" checkers — Paste a URL and the service tests it from its own servers once (e.g. isitdownrightnow.com, downforeveryoneorjustme.com). Good for a quick yes/no.
- Continuous uptime monitors — A tool that checks your URL every 1–5 minutes from multiple regions and alerts you the moment it goes down, so you don't have to keep manually re-checking. This is what you want for any site you care about. You can start one free and set it up in under two minutes.
Quick way to check if a site is down: use our free website down checker — paste any URL and we'll test it from outside your network in seconds.
- Run the URL through an independent down checker (multiple locations).
- If it reports down, it's a real outage — jump to the troubleshooting steps below.
- If it reports up but you can't reach it, the problem is local (your DNS cache, VPN, ISP, or firewall) — see how to tell if it's just you.
For sites you run, don't rely on manual checks: set up a free website monitor so a down checker runs automatically around the clock and pings you on email, SMS, or Slack instead.
Step 1: Check From Outside Your Network
Your own browser and Wi‑Fi can lie. If the site works for you but not for others (or the other way around), you're seeing a local or regional issue, not necessarily a global outage.
Use an independent uptime checker
Use a tool that checks your site from multiple locations on the internet, not from your own network:
- Uptime monitoring services — They ping your URL from several regions and report up/down and response time. (See our comparison of free uptime monitoring tools if you don't have one yet, or the free uptime monitor overview.)
- "Is it down?" style sites — Public pages that test a URL from their servers (e.g. isitdownrightnow.com, downforeveryoneorjustme.com).
If these say your site is down, it's likely a real outage. If they say up but you can't reach it, the problem is probably on your side (Wi‑Fi, ISP, DNS cache, VPN).
Try from a different device and network
- Turn off Wi‑Fi and use mobile data (or the opposite).
- Try from another device or ask someone in another place to open the URL.
- If it works on mobile data but not Wi‑Fi, the issue is likely your local network or ISP.
Step 2: Rule Out DNS Issues
Often the site is up, but DNS is wrong or slow. Your browser can't find the server, so the page "doesn't load."
Check DNS resolution
Use dig or nslookup (or an online DNS lookup tool) and query your domain:
dig yourdomain.com
- No results or wrong IP — DNS is misconfigured or not propagated. Check your DNS provider (e.g. Cloudflare, Route53, your registrar) and fix the A/AAAA records.
- Slow response — DNS might be slow or overloaded; consider a faster DNS provider or CDN.
Flush local DNS cache
Your computer or router might be caching old DNS:
- Windows:
ipconfig /flushdns - macOS:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder - Router: Reboot or clear DNS cache in admin panel.
Then try loading the site again.
Step 3: Check SSL and HTTPS
If the site loads over HTTP but not HTTPS (or shows a certificate warning), the problem is SSL/TLS, not the server itself.
Certificate expired or invalid
Browsers block or warn on expired or invalid certificates. Check:
- Your hosting or SSL provider (Let's Encrypt, Cloudflare, etc.).
- Whether auto‑renewal is enabled and actually ran.
- That the certificate matches the domain (e.g. no
wwwvs non‑www mismatch).
Fix by renewing the certificate or correcting the domain. Use SSL monitoring (e.g. from an uptime tool) so you get alerted before expiry.
Mixed content or redirect loops
- Mixed content — Page is HTTPS but loads scripts/images over HTTP; some browsers block them and the site can look "broken."
- Redirect loop — HTTP → HTTPS or
www→ non‑www (or vice versa) misconfigured, so the browser gives up.
Check the browser console and Network tab for blocked requests or repeated redirects, then fix your links and redirect rules.
Step 4: Check Your Hosting and Server
If DNS and SSL look fine but the site is still down, the issue is likely hosting or the application.
Host status page
Check your host’s status page (e.g. status.aws.amazon.com, status.cloudflare.com) for incidents in your region or service.
Server and application
- 500 errors — Bug or misconfiguration in your app; check logs (e.g. PHP, Node, Django) and recent deploys.
- 502/503 — Server overloaded or app not running; restart the app or scale up.
- Timeout — Server too slow or unresponsive; check CPU, memory, database, and slow queries.
Use uptime monitoring that checks your live URL (and key pages) every 1–5 minutes so you see exactly when it went down and when it came back.
Step 5: Recent Changes That Often Cause Outages
Quick checklist of usual suspects:
| Change | What can go wrong |
|---|---|
| DNS change | Wrong or old records; long propagation. |
| SSL renewal | Expired cert, wrong domain, renewal failed. |
| Code deploy | Bug, crash, or missing env vars. |
| Plugin/theme update (WordPress) | Conflict, white screen, 500 error. |
| Hosting migration | DNS not updated, wrong config, firewall. |
| CDN/firewall change | Blocked traffic, wrong origin, cache issues. |
If the site went down right after a change, revert or fix that change first (e.g. rollback deploy, restore previous DNS, fix SSL).
How to Avoid "Is My Site Down?" Panic Next Time
Reacting only when someone reports a problem means you're always one step behind. To get ahead:
- Use uptime monitoring — A service that hits your URL from multiple locations every few minutes and alerts you (email, SMS, Slack) when it's down or slow.
- Monitor SSL — Get alerts before your certificate expires so you never go down due to expiry.
- Use a status page — When something does go wrong, a status page (e.g. status.yourdomain.com) lets you say "we know, we're fixing it" instead of leaving users guessing.
With monitoring, you know the site is down before users have to ask "is my website down?"
Quick Checklist: Is My Website Down?
- Check from an independent uptime/down checker (multiple locations).
- Try from another device and network (e.g. mobile data).
- Verify DNS (dig/nslookup) and flush local DNS cache.
- Confirm SSL is valid and not expired; check for redirect loops.
- Check host status page and your server/app logs.
- Review recent changes (DNS, SSL, deploy, plugins, hosting).
- Set up uptime + SSL monitoring so you're alerted next time.
Final Thoughts
"Is my website down?" doesn't always have a simple yes/no answer. Check from outside your network, rule out DNS and SSL, then look at hosting and recent changes. Once you know the cause, you can fix it — and with monitoring in place, you'll know about the next incident before your users do.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I tell if a website is down for everyone or just me?
Open the site from a different network (e.g. switch to mobile data or use a phone hotspot) and from a different device. Then test it through an independent down checker that hits the URL from several global locations — if all external checks fail, the site is genuinely down. If only your own connection fails, the problem is local: DNS cache, a VPN, a firewall rule, or your ISP.
How do I check if a website is down?
Run the URL through a website down checker that tests it from outside your network. The fastest manual options are one-off "is it down" sites, but they only tell you about this exact moment. For any site you own or rely on, set up a continuous uptime monitor that checks it every 1–5 minutes from multiple regions and alerts you automatically — you can check any site for free without installing anything. If the checker says the site is up but you still can't load it, the issue is on your side (DNS, VPN, ISP, or browser cache).
Is there a free website down checker?
Yes. Use our free website down checker to test any URL once from outside your network, or — better for sites you manage — set up a free uptime monitor that acts as an always-on website down checker: it pings your URL from several locations on a schedule and notifies you the instant it detects an outage, so you find out before your visitors do.
What does it mean when a site is "down for me but not for others"?
It almost always means a local issue, not a real outage. The most common causes are a stale DNS cache (flush it with ipconfig /flushdns on Windows or sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on macOS), a VPN or proxy routing your traffic through a blocked region, a corporate firewall, browser cache holding an old error page, or an IP-based block at the host. Try a different network and an incognito window before assuming the site is broken.
Why does my website say "this site can't be reached"?
That browser error generally means your computer can't establish a TCP connection to the host. Likely causes, in order: DNS is not resolving the domain, the server is offline or rejecting connections, a firewall is blocking port 80/443, an SSL handshake failure on HTTPS, or a CDN/origin outage. Pinging the domain and running dig or nslookup tells you whether DNS resolves; if it does, the issue is server- or network-side.
How long does it usually take to fix a website outage?
Most short outages — bad deploys, DNS misconfigurations, certificate renewals — are resolved in 5 to 30 minutes once you have access and a clear root cause. Hosting-level incidents (provider, region, CDN) can run from 30 minutes to several hours. The fastest way to shorten an outage is to know it happened the moment it starts, which is why automated uptime monitoring with alerts beats waiting for a user to email you.
How do I prevent my website from going down in the future?
You can't prevent every outage, but you can prevent the surprise. Set up uptime monitoring with multi-region checks every 1–5 minutes, monitor SSL certificate expiry separately, keep DNS records and registrar credentials documented, test deploys in staging, and run a public status page so you can communicate during incidents instead of fielding individual "is your site down?" messages.