Website Downtime: What To Do When Your Site Is Offline

Your website is down - don't panic!

Website downtime is annoying, but usually quickly fixable. Follow these steps to get your site back online.

Step 1: Confirm the problem is real

Test if your website is really offline:

• Down For Everyone Or Just Me: downforeveryoneorjustme.com
• IsItDownRightNow: Test from multiple locations
• Test on your mobile (not via WiFi)

If the site is only down for you, it's your internet or DNS cache.

Step 2: Check the cause

Is your hosting the problem?

1. Log in to your hosting control panel
2. Check if your hosting is active
3. Check if you've reached disk space or bandwidth limit
4. Look at your provider's server status page

Common causes:

1. Server problems at your hosting provider

• Check their status page
• Look on Twitter for notifications
• Contact support

2. Domain name expired

• Check if your domain is still valid
• Log in to your registrar
• Renew your domain

3. Disk space full

• Too many files or database entries
• Old backups not cleaned up
• Log files too large

4. Bandwidth limit exceeded

• High traffic
• DDoS attack
• Image hotlinking

Step 3: Quick fixes

If your site uses too much space:

1. Delete old backups
2. Clean up the wp-content/uploads folder
3. Empty old logs

If DNS is the problem:

1. Check your nameservers at your registrar
2. Wait 24-48 hours after DNS changes
3. Flush your local DNS cache

If you're hacked:

See our hacked website action plan guide.

Step 4: Contact hosting support

If you can't find the problem yourself:

1. Open an urgent support ticket
2. State: "Website offline since [time]"
3. Provide your domain name
4. Describe what you've already tried

Good hosting providers like TransIP and Antagonist respond within 30 minutes to urgent tickets.

Step 5: Switch to better hosting

Frequent downtime is a sign of poor hosting. Check our hosting comparison for reliable alternatives.

Look for providers with:

• 99.9% uptime guarantee
• 24/7 support
• Monitoring tools
• Automatic backups

Prevent future downtime

Use uptime monitoring:

• UptimeRobot: Free monitoring (every 5 minutes)
• Pingdom: Professional monitoring
• StatusCake: Free plan available

You'll get an email as soon as your site goes offline.

Choose reliable hosting:

Providers with the best uptime:

• TransIP (99.99% uptime)
• Antagonist (99.95% uptime)
• Hostnet (99.9% uptime)

Compare hosting providers on uptime and reliability.