A page won't load. Is the website down, or is it just you? This guide gives you a 1-minute method to tell the difference, explains what HTTP errors mean, and shows how site owners get alerted before their users notice.

1. The fastest test: check from somewhere else

Your browser only tells you what your connection sees. To know if a site is down for everyone, test it from an independent location. Paste the URL in our free website down checker: it requests the page from our servers and returns the HTTP status code and response time.

  • Our check says "up" → the site works; the problem is between you and the server.
  • Our check says "down" → the site (or its hosting, DNS or CDN) has an outage for everyone.

2. If it's just you: 6 things to try

  1. Open the site in a private window to rule out cache, cookies and extensions.
  2. Try another network (switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data).
  3. Disable your VPN, proxy or ad blocker.
  4. Flush your DNS cache (ipconfig /flushdns on Windows, sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on macOS) or switch to a public DNS resolver.
  5. Check the exact URL: http vs https, www vs no www.
  6. Restart your router — ISP routing issues are more common than you think.

3. If it's down for everyone: read the error

  • 500 Internal Server Error: the application crashed.
  • 502 Bad Gateway / 504 Gateway Timeout: the proxy or CDN cannot reach the origin server.
  • 503 Service Unavailable: overload or planned maintenance.
  • Timeout / connection refused: server offline, firewall, or network failure.
  • DNS error ("server IP address could not be found"): domain expired or DNS misconfigured.
  • Certificate error: the SSL certificate expired — verify it with the SSL checker.

Note that a 404 is not an outage: the server answered, only the page is missing.

4. Where to find official updates

Most online services publish a status page (often status.company.com) with live incident updates. Their social accounts and community forums are the next best source. If you run a website yourself, a public status page cuts support tickets dramatically during incidents.

5. For site owners: don't wait for users to tell you

If you're checking whether your own site is down, you're already late. Uptime monitoring checks your site every minute from outside your infrastructure and alerts you by email, SMS, Slack or webhook the moment it fails.

Conclusion

To check if a website is down, test it from an independent location: if it answers there, the problem is local; if not, it's a real outage. And if the website is yours, automate the check.

Start monitoring for free — 5 monitors, no credit card.