Website is down ("403 Forbidden" error)

One of the most common causes of the 403 Forbidden error are incorrect file permissions settings. This error message is displayed to protect you against hackers, i.e. for security reasons.

To correct this error, check if any file's or folder's permission is set to 777 (which means that everybody can edit it). If you detect a file or a folder with those settings, change the value 777 to 750 or 755 (for folders) and to 644 (for files).

Maybe the obstacle that prevents you from accessing a certain website is the great amount of cookies and cache files stored in your device.

To learn how to clear the browser's cache (and cookies), check out the don't know how to clear the cache solutions.

It's possible that the browser itself prevents you from browsing the net and loading websites. A simple restart of the browser program itself could solve the problem.

To restart the browser click the X icon in the top-right corner of the browser (or in the top-left on Mac OS), and click the browser icon from the desktop. Try loading the same website again.

Maybe the website is down because of an ISP- or hosting-related issue. Try again in 10-30 minutes to check if it's back online. If it's still offline, report the issue to the hosting provider which will resolve it quickly.

If you (or the website administrator) recently updated the DNS settings of the website or registered a new domain, please note that it can take up to 48 hours for these changes to take effect, so, the website may appear that it's down during this time.

Note: If 48 hours have passed and nothing changed (i.e. your website is still down), contact the hosting-server operators.

Maybe you can't access the website because of a spelling error.

Check if you entered the website's name correctly, and if you entered the right top-level domains (.com, .net, .org etc.).

If you have already verified that all the file permissions are correct and you still see the 403 Forbidden error, you will need to check your .htaccess file. You can have multiple .htaccess files in your account, so you may need to search or modify .htaccess files other than public_html/.htaccess.

For example, if you have an addon domain located at public_html/addon_domain, you'll need to check any .htaccess files within that folder as well. If one of the lines in the actual file says Options All -Indexes then simply remove -Indexes and save the file.

Note: This solution also helps if the "504 Gateway Timeout" error and "500 Internal Server Error" are displayed.

Reloading the website may fix it, especially if you see a 408 Request Timeout error (or 40X error of any type). Reload it by pressing CTRL + R or clicking the semi-circular arrow next to the URL.

If your website is hosted by Just host and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 888-755-7585, or via their live chat service.

There might be an issue with the server and/or the hosting provider of the website, or your IP address might have been blocked by them for some reason.

Contact them and inform them about the issue. They will tell you what's wrong and resolve it as soon as possible.

Maybe your computer is preventing you from opening the website. Most likely it's a result of a browser-related issue (a plug-in or an extension became unresponsive), or a software-related one.

Try closing the browser first. If that didn't work, restart the computer.

If you want to learn more details check out the don't know how to restart my device solutions.

If your website is hosted by iPage and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 1-877-472-4399, or via their live chat service

If your website is hosted by IdeaHost and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 844-271-6520, or via their live chat service

If your website is hosted by HostMonster and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 866-573-4678 (Outside the U.S: +1(801) 494-8462) or via their live chat service

If your website is hosted by Dot5Hosting and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 866-811-2548, or via their live chat service.

Maybe the website is down because it suffered a Denial-of-Service (DDOS) attack.

Symptoms of denial-of-service attacks include:

• Unusually slow network performance (opening files or accessing websites)
  
  
• Unavailability of a particular website
  
  
• Inability to access any website
  
  
• High increase in the number of spam emails (this type of DDOS is usually referred to as an e-mail bomb)

If you own the website that might have suffered a DDOS attack, read this article which explains how to defend yourself against future DDOS attacks.

Uptimerobot is a free-of-charge service that tracks the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites.

Uptimerobot may not help you to "wake up" your website again, but it can alert you quickly if it happens in the future (by checking on your website every 5 minutes).

Go to uptimerobot's website , sign up for free and start monitoring your website.

Websites can get infected with viruses just like computers, and start misbehaving. Ask your hosting provider/ server admin to perform a scan instead of you.

Alternatively, you can download all of your website files to your computer (e.g. via FTP-File Transfer Protocol) and scan them through your computer (make sure that you have a good antivirus problem installed e.g. Avira, Avast, and etc., otherwise you risk infecting your computer as well). The main files you need to pay attention to are:

• index.php

• .htaccess

• header.php

• footer.php

• functions.php

• the entire wp-content folder (which contains the plugins and themes)
  
  

Note: Not all types of websites allow you to download the website to your computer.

Maybe your website got hacked. If you detect a suspicious activity on your website or if your browser shows you this message This site may harm your computer when you try to access it, then your website is most likely hacked.

Check the website codes for suspicious lines / recent changes or hire a professional instead. Before you decide to hire a professional, double-check the website to make sure that this is a problem you can't solve.

Note: Read this article, which will inform you how to maintain and protect your website.

Your server might have run out of disk space. If your site gets a lot of traffic then the server logs can rapidly use up the available disk space even when your application’s storage requirements are low.

If possible, free up some disk space by deleting unnecessary media files (e.g. videos, pictures, etc.) hosted on your website. If not, you can always upgrade the hosting plan.

If your website is hosted by Godaddy and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: (480) 505-8877, or via their live chat service (scroll to the bottom of the page)

If your website is hosted by Hostclear and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 866-585-7989 or via their live chat service.

If your website is hosted by ThemeCloud and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who would help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 855-457-1242 or consult their online knowledge base

If your website is hosted by Bluehost and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on: 888-401-4678 or via their live chat service.

Pingdom is a service that tracks the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites. Pingdom monitors websites from multiple locations globally so that it can distinguish genuine downtime from routing and access problems.

Pingdom may not help you to "wake up" your website again, but it can alert you quickly if it happens in the future.

Go to Pingdom, select and subscribe to a plan and Pingdom will start monitoring your website.

The site might be down due to a programming error. You can check this by visiting the website and see what the status bar at the bottom of the browser says. If it says “Done” or “Loaded,” rather than “Waiting…” or “Connecting…,” the website is working properly, but there is a programming error or misconfiguration.

If you're a developer yourself, check the server´s error log for clues, otherwise talk to the developers of the site and ask them to fix it.

Also check this free-of-charge website, which will point you to issues in the code.

If your website goes down frequently after you have updated a component of it (a plug-in, add-on etc.), or if your host upgraded the OS or made a modification of any kind, then the update itself caused the problem.

Although hosting operators attempt to ensure Ruby, Python, MySQL, PHP, PostgreSQL, etc. remain backward compatible, some files (commands) might have been affected, which caused the website to go down.

Reverse those changes if you made them by yourself (i.e. find the faulty component and reverse the update or even uninstall it), or talk to the hosting operators.

Note: Fixing this issue might take you a lot of time and concentration. Don't modify anything unless you know it's function.

Temporary problems with your modem, router, switch, or other network device could be the reason, esp. if you see a 504 Gateway Timeout error message.

The easiest way to restart the above-mentioned devices is by unplugging them from the power outlet and plug them back in, in about 5 minutes.

If your website is slow or goes down frequently due to a large number of visitors (or something else), this might be a hosting-related issue, i.e the hosting plan doesn't meet your needs.

The best solutions include upgrading the already existing hosting plan (by selecting more expensive packagages than the already selected one) or changing the hosting provider.

Famous hosting providers include: Hostgator, Bluehost, Ideahost, iPage, Hostclear etc.

A faulty plugin might be the reason for the website being down.

To solve this problem, update all the plugins. If that doesn't work, deactivate the recently added ones to see if that helps.
Find the section labeled plugin(s) in the admin panel of your website and read the plugin's functions carefully before you decide to disable it.

Note: Usually you can reach the admin panel by entering your website's name followed by /admin.php or /wp-admin (Wordpress users) or another extension (e.g. www.xyz.com/admin.php)

If you have your own server and you host your website on it, and your website started misbehaving after the number of visitors on it increased, then it is probably a server-related issue.

The RAM memory is one of the most important components of a server (along with the CPU and the hard drives). If the website consumes more of the RAM memory (provided that you checked the available RAM in the server's control panel), consider:

• Locating the culprit (e.g. a faulty plug in, or a virus) that consumes more of the RAM memory
  
  
• Redesigning the website (by excluding unnecessary memory-consuming add-ons)
  
  
• Upgrading the RAM capacity (If you tried the previous solution and none of them worked)

Note: If you are not sure how to do this on your own, ask an experienced friend or an expert.

If your website is hosted by Hostgator and you experience issues you couldn't resolve by yourself, contact their support staff, who will help you resolve the issue and they are available 24/7 for you.

Contact them on:

• Toll Free: (866) 964 - 2867
• Local: (713) 574 - 5287
• International: 00+1-713-574-5287
• Fax (Billing): (281) 476 - 7800
• Fax (Abuse): (281) 476 - 7801

or via their live chat service

Maybe the issue is in the server. Corrupt memory chips or disk sectors are known to be responsible for a large number of website-related issues and as a result of that, your website is unable to work properly.

First of all, check the memory chips and the disk sectors. If everything appears fine, the website's code might be the problem.

The best way to fix it, if you are not 100% sure, is to hire a professional to do it instead of you.

Note: If you still decide to try to fix it by yourself, check out this article.