Your site is down. Maybe a customer has just told you, or you’ve tried to check it yourself and got an error. It’s a horrible feeling, especially if your website is how people find and contact you. Here’s what to do — calmly, in the right order.
First: Make sure it’s actually down
Before you call anyone, do a quick check:
- Try your site on your phone using mobile data (not your office WiFi)
- Try it in a different browser
- Use a free tool like [downforeveryoneorjustme.com](https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com) to check from an external perspective
If it’s only down for you, the problem might be your local internet connection, a browser cache issue or a DNS problem at your end. Try restarting your router or switching to a different network.
If it’s down for everyone, move on.
Common reasons WordPress sites go down
Server problems at your hosting company
All hosting companies experience outages occasionally. The question is how quickly they fix them and whether they communicate what’s happening. A good hosting provider will have a status page and will keep customers informed.
Your account has been suspended
This usually means a payment has lapsed, your site was flagged for malware, or you’ve breached your hosting terms. Check your email — your host should have warned you before suspending the account.
You’ve hit your resource limits
On cheaper hosting plans, a spike in traffic can cause your site to exceed its limits and go offline temporarily. If this is happening regularly, you’ve outgrown your plan.
A recent change went wrong
Did someone update a plugin, change your theme or make edits to your site recently? That’s often the trigger. If you can identify what changed, you can often roll it back.
Your domain has expired
Worth checking. Log into your domain registrar and confirm your renewal is up to date.
Your SSL certificate has expired
This won’t take your site fully offline, but browsers will show a security warning that stops most visitors — it has the same practical effect as being down.
What to do next
If you’re on a WordPress care package: Call your provider. This is exactly what the support is for. A good care package includes monitoring — which means your provider may already know your site is down before you do, and may already be working on it.
If you’re managing your hosting yourself: Log into your hosting control panel and check for warnings, suspension notices or error messages. Then contact your host’s support team.
Check your error logs: If you have access, your server error logs will often tell you exactly what went wrong.
What counts as an acceptable response time?
If your site goes down due to something on your host’s end, a competent provider should have most issues resolved within an hour or two. Anything beyond that deserves an explanation.
If your site goes down regularly, that’s not something to accept. Frequent downtime is bad for your Google rankings, bad for your customers and bad for your business.
The advantage of having proper support
The difference between a WordPress care package and basic hosting is largely this: when something goes wrong, you have someone to call who actually knows your site, has access to fix it, and is motivated to do so quickly.
Basic hosting support will point you at a knowledge base article. A care package provider will fix the problem.
See what’s included in our WordPress care packages
External resources:
- [WordPress.org common error troubleshooting](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/common-wordpress-errors/)
- [NCSC guidance on website resilience for small businesses](https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/small-business-guide)
