Is my site up or down?

Coming across an error message when visiting a website is a frustrating experience, especially when that website is your own. However, you needn't panic as soon as this happens.

First of all, you should try to ascertain whether the website is down for everyone or down only for you. In the latter case, there could be configuration issues that need to be addressed.

On the other hand, it could be down for everyone because of DNS issues, software and/or database issues, issues with the hosting provider, or attacks by hackers.
In this case, you can use this tool to determine what exactly the situation is. There could be two possible scenarios involved here:

A user is not able to access your website

Let’s say someone contacts your customer support center or posts on your social media handle that they’re unable to access your website. Before contacting the IT department, you can first perform a quick check with the help of this tool and find out whether the webserver is actively responding and externally available or not.
If the website happens to be down for everybody, you can proceed to do whatever is necessary to get it restored to normal. If the issue appears to be at the user’s end, you can help them take steps to rectify it (for example, clearing out their cache).

A website you are trying to visit is not accessible

This is something all of us have experienced at some point or the other. Upon entering the URL of a website you want to visit, you get an error message that the website is unavailable. You can use this tool to find out whether the website itself is down or it is a problem at your end (for example, a connectivity issue).

How does this tool work?

When you enter the URL in this tool, it performs a status test on the website’s domain in real-time. In this manner, it ascertains whether the website is down or not.

What should you do if you discover that your website is down?

If you discover that your website is down, you must first proceed to contact your web hosting company and get a status update on the exact situation. After that, ask them how long it will take for the downtime to be fixed. Contact your IT support team and any tech-savvy friends of yours for help as well.

Also, you should never leave your users in the dark. Put out a relevant message on your social media handles and let your customers know about the technical issues at hand. Assure them that you are doing your best to resolve them as soon as possible. Communicate regularly with your IT team and cooperate with them if they require any help finding details about your server or website.

Most importantly, you must not panic while handling this situation. Realize that this is a common issue frequently encountered by all website owners. By staying calm, you can make sure that you and your team get the problem solved as soon as possible.