Website is down (Recently changed the domain)

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.

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.

Maybe there is an issue with your internet connection which is due to the ISP itself (a problem with the ISP's DNS settings or something else), which prevents you from loading any website (or only a certain website).

Call your internet service provider whose team will troubleshoot and resolve the problem as soon as possible.

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.

When you type an address into your web browser, your computer uses DNS (Domain Name System) to look up and translate that address into a computer-friendly IP address. In other words, the DNS has the role of a librarian, who you can ask for a book. Sometimes, the servers your computer uses to look up that information can go down, thus preventing you from loading the desired web site.
 
To learn how to change the DNS settings, check out the don't know how to change the DNS settings solutions

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.

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 visited by too many people at the same time and the server on which your website is hosted cannot handle them, your website will go down.

To fix this issue use backup servers, which will "help" your main server in case of emergency and keep your website up all the time.

Before anyone jumps to fixing things, you should use this tool that allows people to check and see if a website is down for everyone or just them and then provides additional solutions: https://cgscomputer.com/website-status-checker/

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)

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).

A corrupted .htaccess file is one of the factors responsible for the 500 Internal Server Error. It may have become corrupted after you have installed a plugin or made another change to your WordPress site.

To fix this error, you need to create a new .htaccess file. To create a new .htaccess file:

1.  Open the WordPress root directory in FileZilla (click here if you don't know how to install and configure it) or your preferred FTP client (a software which uses the FTP- File Transfer Protocol to transfer files to and from a remote computer)
   
   It is typically called public_html. If you see folders named wp-admin and wp-content, you’re in the right place. If you can’t find the .htaccess file, click Server  and select Force Showing Hidden Files.
   
   
2.  Once you find it, rename it into .htaccess.bak
   
   
3.  Log in and go into your website's admin area (e.g. in case it's a Wordpress site www.yoururl.com/wp-admin), and then go to Settings -> Permalink
   
   
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click Save Changes
   
   
5. Open your website, which should be working fine.

The hosts file enables you to add URLs of webpages you want to block, which will automatically be blocked in every single browser installed in your computer. Also, some viruses can modify the hosts file in order to prevent you from downloading an antivirus software which can find and remove the virus.
 
All you have to do to fix this issue is to open and modify the hosts file:

My Computer -> Local Disk (C:) -> Windows -> System32 -> drivers -> etc

Open it with Notepad (right-click the hosts file -> Open with -> select Notepad). In the hosts file you will see other addresses which serve as an example and which you MUSTN'T delete. If you find a link associated with the website you want to open or with an antivirus software, delete it and save the changes.

The hosts file enables you to add URLs of webpages you want to block, which will automatically be blocked in every single browser installed in your computer. Also, some viruses can modify the hosts file in order to prevent you from downloading an antivirus software which can find and remove the virus.
 
All you have to do to fix this issue is to open and modify the hosts file. To modify the hosts file:

1.  Open the Terminal.app by going into Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.
   
   
2. Type the following line: sudo nano /private/etc/hosts (type your username and password when asked)
   
   
3. If you notice a URL of a websites you visit, or websites of antivirus software, delete them and press and hold Control + O to save the changes and Control + X to exit
   
   
4. Flush the DNS cache by entering the following line (depending on your OS version):
   
   
   • dscacheutil -flushcache - Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6 through v10.6.8)
     
     
   • sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder - Mac OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion, and Lion (v10.9.5 and earlier)
     
     
   • sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache - Mac OS X Yosemite and later (v10.10 through v10.10.3)
     
     
   • sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder - Mac OS X Yosemite and later (v10.10.4 or later)

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