What To Do If Your Website Is Down

A website could go down for a number of reasons. It might not even be your site that’s down but your internet service. But what if your connection is fine and you still can’t access your site? What should you do?

Check your website using other browsers

If it isn’t a connection issue, there’s a chance there’s a problem with your browser. If you have tried opening your website using Firefox, then try it on Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge and other browsers.

You can also close and reopen the browser to restart it. If you’re using your phone, close the app and then try again.

Your domain name could have already expired

Once you have confirmed it’s not a browser issue, check if your domain name has expired. Some people have the misconception that once they have registered to a particular domain name, it means they are entitled to it indefinitely.

But this is wrong. Domain name registration is only good for a certain amount of time and must be renewed once it expires. If you don’t, then it becomes available for others to buy. This is absolutely devastating because it means the brand that you have built up will be inherited by someone else and you have to start again from scratch. Surprisingly, this happens more often than you think.

When your domain expires, your website becomes inactive right away and will no longer display.

How to check if your domain has expired

Follow these steps to confirm if your domain name has expired:

• Visit whois.com
• Type in your domain name on the search box.
• The search results will show if the domain name is available or not.
• If it says “client hold” it means your domain has expired. You need to go to your domain registrar to renew that domain name and make sure you don’t lose it.

Alternately, you can also head over to mxtoolbox.com and do a search for your domain name there.

If you’re domain has not expired and your site is still down, the next step you want to take is to contact your developer or hosting provider to find out what’s wrong with your website.

Do you want to know how your website is performing? Get in touch with us at [email protected] so we can check which parts of your site needs to improve for better performance.