My website is down. How do I find out why?

First confirm the problem is the site and not your connection. Try it on mobile data and on wifi, and use a website status checker to see whether it loads from elsewhere. Note exactly what you see: a browser message that the site cannot be reached, a hosting company's suspended page, a security warning, a blank white page, or a database connection error. Each points somewhere different, and a screenshot saves time when you contact your host or developer.

Then work through the usual causes. If the site cannot be found at all, check whether the domain has expired or its DNS settings were changed. A hosting suspension page usually means an unpaid invoice, a failed card or a resource limit breached. A security warning points to an expired SSL certificate. A white screen or critical error message often follows a plugin or theme update, and restoring the previous version or temporarily disabling the plugin through the hosting file manager may bring it back. A database error can mean the server is overloaded or the database is damaged.

If none of that explains it, contact your hosting provider's support with the details and screenshots, and ask whether there is a wider outage. Keep a list somewhere safe of your registrar, host, and every login, because during an outage is the worst time to search for them. Uptime monitoring that alerts you within minutes means you often hear before your customers do. For sites we build or maintain under the Business bundle, we run that monitoring and handle these checks, and you hear from us on WhatsApp rather than from a customer.