Keep reading to learn how to determine if the site is actually down or if there’s just something preventing you from seeing it.
Well, Which Is It?
Learning whether a site is down for everyone or just you is the easy part. There are several websites that can help you with this task. The most popular is Down for Everyone or Just Me. Select the link, enter the URL of the troublesome site in the text box, and select or just me. A results page tells you whether the site is actually down. Now, what if Down for Everyone or Just Me is down? There are several similar sites you can try, including Down.com and Is It Down Right Now.
The Website Is Really Down
If the tool you’re using also finds the site in question down, you can assume it’s down for everyone else as well, meaning there isn’t a lot you can do to solve the problem. In fact, the only thing you can really do to “fix” a down website is wait it out. The issue could be anything from a website manager who forgot to pay the hosting bill to a bandwidth overload, both of which are out of your control. The good news is, if it’s a popular website, it’s likely to be back online shortly, maybe even within minutes.
Just One Page Is Down
It’s also possible that part of a site is down while other parts remain operational. For example, when a popular site like Facebook is down, it’s usually just an issue with image uploads, videos, status posts, or something similar. It’s not common for the entire website to be offline. To see if the site is down or just a single page, delete everything in the URL except for the domain name. For example, if the address of the problematic page is https://example.com/videos/pages/49156.html, enter just https://example.com into the URL field in your browser and press Enter. If this URL works, then the site is working just fine; it’s just the specific web page you’re trying to reach that’s down. It’s also possible that the page has been permanently removed.
Access an Archived Version
If all or part of the site is down, you might be able to access an archived version. Check Google for a cached version of the page you’re trying to view. If Google stored a copy of the web page in its cache, you can access it there even if the site is down. If that doesn’t work, try viewing the website on Wayback Machine, a service that stores web pages periodically for archival purposes.
The Website Isn’t the Issue
If one or more down website detectors identified the site as being online, then the problem must be on your end. Unfortunately, troubleshooting why you’re not able to view a functioning website is more complicated than dealing with a down site. There are a number of factors that can contribute to you not being able to view a website and the following steps, taken one by one, can help you diagnose the problem. If the site opens on the second device, you’ve confirmed that it’s live but the first device you tried it on is unable to reach it for some reason. You now know to troubleshoot the initial device rather than your connection. If the new browser lets you access the website, you might have to reinstall the other one, uninstall an extension or two, or reset the browser’s settings. To confirm if you need to do those things, try the website in a fresh browser that you haven’t customized. In some cases, depending on how your browser is set up, opening the page in the browser’s private mode could be enough, instead of using a completely different browser. If the site is still down, restart your whole device. There are several free DNS servers you can pick from to see if DNS is the reason the site is down for just you. However, some malware scanners report false positives, making the site appear to be down even though it’s completely safe. If you suspect that this is happening, temporarily disable the antivirus software and see if the site works. If it does, you can try a different antivirus program in hopes that it won’t block the site. Some techniques for unblocking a website include some of the steps you’ve already tried, as well as new ones like disconnecting Wi-Fi to use a mobile network, using a VPN service, and running the site through a web proxy. If you find that the website is being blocked, talk with the network administrator to learn what you can do to keep it unblocked in the future. They might be performing upgrades to the network that are interfering with certain sites. Or maybe there’s been a system-wide failure that has knocked out access for a number of users, including you.
