You enter your website in your browser’s address bar and… nothing. The browser just says the page is not available or the connection is lost. Oh oh, site’s down.
Or is it?
Go to downforeveryoneorjustme.com and enter your domain name. It will tell you if everyone’s having a problem or it’s just you. Most of the time it’s just you.
Still worried? Try the site at whatsmydns.net and it will show you servers all over the world and whether they are getting through to your site or not. Again, most of the time, it’s just you.
Still worried, even though both these sites say everything’s ok? Not sure what to say…
Now, if it isn’t just you, then take these steps:
- Check your hosting provider’s website for any messages about general outages.
- If there’s no general reason for your site to be down, then call your hosting provider.
I’m assuming from the start that you’re not getting a specific error message about an Internal Server Error or Database Connection Error or a white screen of death. Those are all indications of a specific problem with your site or your content management system in particular, and of course, need to be dealt with.
And if you can’t sleep at night for wondering if your site’s gone down, pay for a monitoring service like Pingdom.
What's Your Take?