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Infrastructure · people search: “Is my website down — or is it just me?”

Is my website down — or is it just me?

Before you panic, three quick tests tell you whether the problem is your device, your domain, or your hosting — usually in under five minutes.

Plain English · no jargon · 4-minute read

Part of Servers & Infrastructure — read first, then fix it in 48h.

'Is it down for everyone, or just me?' is the right first question, and you can answer it yourself before you call anyone. A site that is down has one of four owners: your own connection, a global outage at your host, a domain or DNS — The internet's address book: it turns your domain name into the server visitors actually reach. problem, or your server itself. Each shows a different symptom, and telling them apart saves hours of panic and pointless support tickets.

Check these first, yourself

  1. Try the site on your phone with WiFi off. If it loads on mobile data, the site is fine and the problem is your network, DNS cache — A ready-made copy of your pages kept warm so the server doesn't rebuild everything on every visit., or browser.

  2. Check a third-party checker (isitdownrightnow, Downdetector) and your host's status page — if thousands report it, it's a provider outage you can only wait out.

  3. Look at the exact error: 'DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN' points at the domain/DNS, 'ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT' points at the server, a host 'suspended' notice points at billing or abuse.

  4. Check the domain's expiry date at your registrar — The company where your domain name is registered — whoever controls that account controls the domain. — an expired domain takes the whole site and email down at once, and the window to renew before it's parked is short.

Should you fix it yourself or call a rescue?

Have you tried the free fixes (images, caching, plugins)?If yes and it's still slow → the problem is deeper.
Is your hosting or server the bottleneck?Shared hosting, old PHP, no object cache → server-level problem.

Still have questions?

How do I tell a host outage from my own site breaking?

A host status page reporting an incident plus many reports on Downdetector means the provider is down — waiting is the only fix. If the host is green and only your site fails, the fault is inside your account: DNS, server config, or an exhausted resource.

Can an expired domain really take my email down too?

Yes — your domain points both the website and the mail records. When it lapses, mail stops being delivered to you and the site goes dark together. Renew it the same day; some registrars add a grace period, some don't.

Don't want to become an expert in this?

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