My WordPress site is down
What to do when your WordPress website is unavailable — a calm, step-by-step guide to diagnosing and reporting the problem.
- Difficulty
- Beginner
Your website is down. Visitors are seeing an error, a blank page, or nothing at all. This is stressful — but before you panic, know that most outages can be fixed once the cause is clear.
This guide helps you figure out what kind of problem you have so you (or we) can fix it quickly.
Quick summary
First, confirm the site is actually down and not just a browser glitch. Then identify the type of error you're seeing — it tells us a lot. Contact us right away with the error message and your site URL. The sooner we know the cause, the sooner we can fix it.
Step 1: Confirm the site is actually down
Sometimes what looks like a site outage is a browser or internet issue.
Try a different browser. If Chrome shows an error, try Safari or Firefox.
Try on your phone using mobile data (not your office Wi-Fi). If the site loads on your phone, the problem is local to your computer or network.
Check an independent status checker. Go to downforeveryoneorjustme.com and enter your site address. It will tell you if the site is down for everyone or just you.
If the site loads on mobile data
The problem is with your local network or computer. Try restarting your router, or ask a colleague on a different network to check. You can also clear your browser's cache: see how to clear your cache.
Step 2: Read the error message carefully
Error messages look scary but they tell us exactly what's wrong. Here's what the most common ones mean:
| Error message | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| "This site can't be reached" with the code ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED | A DNS or domain problem: the browser can't find the server for your domain. The domain may have expired or its DNS settings may have changed. (Chrome shows the same heading for other connection errors, so check the error code too.) |
| 503 Service Unavailable | The server is temporarily overloaded or under maintenance |
| 500 Internal Server Error | Something went wrong on the server. On WordPress, common causes are a damaged server settings file (.htaccess), a plugin, the theme, or a memory limit |
| A page from your host saying the site is suspended or unavailable | The host may have suspended the site, for example over billing or resource limits |
| ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR or another security warning | A problem with the site's SSL setup (the security padlock), such as a certificate that has expired or isn't set up correctly |
| 404 Not Found | The specific page doesn't exist, but the site itself may be fine |
Take a screenshot of whatever error you see. It speeds up diagnosis enormously.
Step 3: Check if it's a domain problem
A domain is your website's address (like yourcompany.com). If it expires or its settings change, your site can stop loading even though nothing is wrong with WordPress itself.
Think about whether you recently received any emails about domain renewal. Did you renew it?
Check your registrar email. Check the email address associated with your domain registrar (the company where your domain is registered). Look for any unpaid renewal notices.
Contact us. We can check the domain status within minutes and take action if it has expired.
See also: What happens when a domain expires
Step 4: Check your hosting status
Your host is the company that stores and serves your website. Sometimes they take servers offline for maintenance, or a billing issue causes a suspension.
Log in to your hosting account and look for any alerts, maintenance notices, or billing warnings.
Check the host's status page. Many hosts publish live outage information. Search for "[your host name] status page" to find it.
If there's a billing problem, resolve it through the hosting dashboard. How quickly the site comes back after payment depends on the host.
Hosting billing lapses
If your hosting bill hasn't been paid, many hosts suspend the site first, but policies differ, so act quickly. Pay the outstanding balance, and if the site doesn't come back, contact the host's support team.
Step 5: Contact us
If you cannot identify the cause, or if you've found the cause but aren't sure how to fix it, contact us immediately.
Please tell us:
- Your site URL
- The exact error message you see (or a screenshot)
- When you first noticed the problem
- Whether anything changed recently (a new plugin, a billing event, a DNS change)
See how to report a problem with your site for everything to include.
Don't try to fix hosting-level problems yourself if you're unsure
Well-meaning but incorrect changes to DNS settings, hosting configuration, or SSL certificates can make a short outage into a longer one. If you're uncertain, wait for us — we can usually diagnose and fix things faster than manual trial and error.
While your site is down
A few things you can do while waiting for a fix:
- Let your team know so they don't keep trying and reporting the same issue.
- Put a message on social media if your customers depend on your site — a brief "we're aware of a technical issue and working on it" goes a long way.
- Check if your contact form or online shop is affected — some errors only affect parts of the site, not all of it.
Common questions
How long will my site be down?
It depends entirely on the cause. A browser problem on your side can clear up as soon as you refresh. A crash caused by a plugin is often quick to fix once we find the plugin. A domain expiry can take longer, because even after the domain is renewed, the change can take time to reach every network. We always aim to restore sites as quickly as possible.
Will I lose any content or data?
For almost all types of downtime, no. A site being "down" means it can't be displayed, not that data has been deleted. Backups exist for genuine data-loss scenarios, but these are rare.
My e-commerce shop is down and I'm losing sales. What do I do?
Contact us immediately and mark it as urgent. We treat shop outages as high-priority. If you can log in to WordPress, check whether WooCommerce or payment plugins are showing any errors in the dashboard.
My site has been down before — how can I get alerts automatically?
We offer uptime monitoring as part of our care plan. When the site goes down, we're alerted within a minute or two. See uptime monitoring explained and what our care plan covers.
Related guides
- Fixing the "white screen" error
- My layout broke after an update
- How to report a problem with your site
- What happens when a domain expires
- Uptime monitoring explained
- Troubleshooting hosting problems
- My website is down — the same checklist for any platform
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