My Website Is Down: How Do I Fix It?

Since many businesses sell their goods and services through their websites and online stores, non-working can be a serious problem. This can cause not only financial losses, but also reputational ones. This article will provide recommendations for quickly diagnosing and eliminating failures that make the site unavailable. This simple and useful guide will help you avoid serious problems.

Website Downtime: Clarification

Website downtime can be divided into two categories:

• your site is unavailable in some regions (including for you);
• the site is not accessible to everyone (globally).

The task of any administrator or webmaster is to prevent long downtime and reduce it to a minimum.

Common reasons for website downtime include: server problems:

• DNS problems;
• traffic spikes;
• code errors;
• expired domain or hosting services.

Sometimes it can be one problem, but sometimes several problems at the same time cause the site to be down.

Preliminary Checks: Is Your Website Really Down?

Our team strongly recommends conducting detailed diagnostics before starting to resolve problems with website inaccessibility. This approach will allow you to quickly find out the reason and understand in which regions your site has problems.

• To quickly find out if your site is inaccessible only to you or also to other users, the best solution would be tools such as Host Tracker or UptimeRobot.
• It’s also a good idea to check your Internet connection and clear your browser’s cache and cookies; you can also use a different browser.

Diagnosing the Problem

If you used our recommendations above, then you are really convinced that your site is not working. This may be a local or global problem. Therefore, the further steps described below will allow you to return your site to functionality.

Hosting Control Panel

First of all, you better go to your hosting control panel, then immediately contact support and fix the problem. While you are waiting for a response from technical support, perform the following steps in your hosting control panel:

• check the server status;
• resource usage;
• error logs.

In this way, you can find the reason for the site downtime on your own very quickly or get a competent response from the support service after a while.

Investigating DNS Settings

If you have recently made any changes to your DNS records, this may be one of the reasons why your site is currently unavailable. Also, outdated DNS configurations can cause similar problems. It is noteworthy that even if the server is working properly, users will not be able to access your site if it has incorrect DNS settings.

Website Traffic: Checking an Important Pattern

If your site has received a sharp increase in traffic, then this may be one of the reasons for its partial and temporary unavailability. This is especially true when your site is based on hosting with limited resources (inexpensive tariff plan).

Automatic Monitoring Service

Leverage a website monitoring service like HostTracker to quickly diagnose and pinpoint the issue. HostTracker offers several key advantages:

• Fast Checking from Multiple Locations: HostTracker checks your website from multiple global locations, ensuring an accurate assessment of its availability.
• Detailed Reports: HostTracker provides detailed reports, including response times, error messages, real time hosting speed test on hosttracker and screenshots, helping you identify the specific cause of the downtime.
• Real-Time Alerts: With real-time alerts, you can be notified as soon as an issue is detected, enabling you to respond promptly and minimize downtime.
• Historical Data: HostTracker keeps historical data, allowing you to identify patterns and trends that may contribute to recurring downtime issues.

By utilizing HostTracker’s monitoring service, you can quickly diagnose the problem and gather essential information to resolve the downtime efficiently.

Website Downtime Issues: Practical Steps to Eliminate

When you already know exactly the reason (or several) why customers cannot access your site, then it’s time to start fixing the problem. Remember that if you have doubts, your hosting technical support can always come to your aid. If this is not the case, then most likely it’s time to find a more reliable provider.

• Server Part

  If during diagnostics you find that the problem lies directly in the server, then try a simple reboot of the equipment. Often this is enough to fix the problem, if not, then technical support will help you.

  If your current specifications can’t handle your data volume or increased traffic, then it’s time to upgrade to a different plan.

• DNS Fixing

  If you have recently made changes to the DNS settings (on the domain registrar side or on the site hosting), then try returning the previous settings when the site was working properly. Also keep in mind that the process of accepting new DNS settings may take some time and even last up to 48 hours.

• Addressing Code and Database Errors

  As we wrote above, analyzing the error log can provide an accurate understanding of the situation, especially when it concerns errors in the database or directly in its code. A detailed log report shows problematic scenarios.

  In case of errors due to scripts or plugins, the best solution would be to update or roll back the version of this software. If this does not solve the problem, then return the old versions of the software.

  Also, when working with fixing errors in the database, do not forget to make backups to avoid larger-scale failures on the site.

• Expired Domains/Hosting Plans

  It’s trivial, but true – many sites suffer from an expired domain rental or hosting plan. If this happens, immediately resolve this issue with technical support. To avoid similar problems in the future, set up automatic payment, and also connect several payment methods in case one of them does not work.

  Please remember that if you forgot to pay for the domain rental, you have 1 month after the rental period expires. After which the domain is put up for auction, where anyone can buy it.

  

• Professional Help

  Don’t be shy to admit when your knowledge and experience are not enough to solve a website downtime problem. If you have tried all the options, but still cannot ensure the stable operation of your site, then it’s time to turn to a professional for help.

  Perhaps you are dealing with a large-scale infrastructure problem or a database accident – all this requires the involvement of specialists who understand these issues.

  At this stage, it is better to find an experienced webmaster or connect qualified technical support. This will cost you some money now, but will avoid serious financial and reputational damage.

Preventing Future Downtime

As you already understand, it is better to take proactive steps than to fix a site that has crashed. Therefore, our team recommends the following.

• Reliable Hosting

  The basis for any website is stable and reliable hosting! After all, if your hosting fails, then it’s simply pointless to improve other indicators. Therefore, if at this stage you are not satisfied with your provider, find a good replacement.

• Backup

  If you knew how many problems could be avoided using backups, you would have connected and configured it long ago. This is especially true when the site works with a database.

• Monitoring

  In fact, experienced webmasters and administrators know that monitoring systems greatly facilitate professional activities. These solutions also allow you to respond to problems more quickly. For example, HostTracker will send you a notification if your site starts to be down or there are some problems on the server.

Endnotes

Our practical advice will help you quickly return your site to full functionality if it begins to be idle. If you find some solution that is not described in this article, then share it with the community. Also prioritize preventative measures to be proactive rather than deal with the consequences.