Common Questions About Website Downtime
Is the website down for everyone or is it just me?
That's the first thing you want to figure out. When you run a check here, we try to reach the site from our servers and verify how it responds. If we can load it fine but you can't, the problem is almost certainly on your end. It could be your DNS cache, a firewall blocking it, your VPN acting up, or even your ISP having a routing issue. If we can't reach it either, then yeah, it's down for everyone. When a fresh check completes, we may show a small temporary desktop preview of what loaded, but we do not store screenshots.
A website isn't loading, what should I try first?
Start simple. Refresh the page, try a different browser, or open it on your phone. If none of that works, clear your browser cache and flush your DNS. You can also try switching your DNS to something like Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1). If you're on a VPN, turn it off and try again. And if the site is truly down for everyone, there's not much you can do besides wait for them to fix it.
Do you store website screenshots?
No. A fresh check can return a small temporary desktop preview in your browser so you can see what loaded, but that image is not saved to the website history or stored as a screenshot file.
Can a website work in one country but be down in another?
Absolutely, and it's more common than people think. A site might use a CDN that has servers all over the world, and if one of those regional servers goes down, users in that area lose access while everyone else is fine. Some countries also block certain websites entirely. Our country-by-country check can help you figure out if it's a regional thing or a full outage.
Why does a website load slowly but isn't completely down?
A slow site isn't necessarily broken. It could be overloaded with traffic, running on an underpowered server, or dealing with a database that's struggling. Sometimes it's on your side too: a weak Wi-Fi signal, a congested network, or even your browser choking on too many open tabs. If our check shows the site responds quickly but it feels slow for you, the bottleneck is probably somewhere between you and the server.
What do HTTP status codes like 502 or 503 actually mean?
When you see a number like 502 or 503, that's the server telling you what went wrong. A 502 (Bad Gateway) usually means one server tried to talk to another and got a bad response, often because of a backend crash. A 503 (Service Unavailable) means the server is temporarily overloaded or under maintenance. A 500 is a generic "something broke on our end." And a 403 means you're blocked from accessing it. These are all server-side issues, so there's usually nothing you can do but wait.
Why can I access a site on my phone but not on my computer?
This usually means the issue is specific to your computer, not the website itself. Your browser might have a corrupted cache, a bad extension could be interfering, or your computer's DNS cache might be stale. It's also possible your computer is using a different network (like Ethernet vs. Wi-Fi) or a different DNS server. Try clearing your browser data, flushing your DNS, or testing in incognito mode.
How often do major websites actually go down?
More often than you'd expect. Even the biggest sites like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have outages from time to time. Most aim for 99.9% uptime, which still allows for about 8 hours of downtime per year. Smaller sites go down more frequently since they usually don't have the same level of redundancy. The good news is major outages tend to get fixed fast because there's a whole team on it the moment something breaks.
Could my ISP be blocking a website?
It's possible. Some ISPs block certain sites due to government regulations, copyright orders, or their own policies. If our checker says the site is up but you can't reach it, and you've already ruled out DNS and firewall issues, your ISP might be the one blocking it. You can try using a VPN or switching to a public DNS like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) to get around ISP-level blocks.