Website not loading? The most common causes and what you can do
Your website won’t load or shows an error message? Here is how to find out what is wrong in a few minutes and fix the most common causes yourself.
A customer calls: “Your website isn’t working.” Before you call your web designer or hosting provider, you can narrow down the problem yourself in a few minutes. Often the cause is harmless and quickly fixed.
Step 1: Is it you or the website?
Open the site on another device, ideally your phone with Wi-Fi switched off. If it works there, the problem is with your computer or your network. Typical reasons are an outdated browser cache, a VPN or a firewall on your company network.
Even faster: our website checker. It fetches the page from a server in Germany, completely independent of your own internet connection.
Step 2: What does the error message say?
The message in your browser reveals a lot about the cause.
“This site can’t be reached” or “DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN”: the browser cannot find the address. Usually the domain has expired or the DNS settings were changed, for example after switching hosts. Check with your domain provider that the domain is still paid for and points to the right server.
“Your connection is not private” or “NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID”: the SSL certificate has expired or does not match the domain. The website is technically reachable, but browsers warn visitors away. How to fix it is explained in our guide SSL certificate expired.
Error 500 “Internal Server Error”: something is going wrong on the server, usually in the website software itself. Common triggers are a failed update of WordPress, a plugin or a theme. If you updated something shortly before, that is your first lead.
Error 502, 503 or 504: the server is overloaded, under maintenance or an upstream service is not responding. On cheap hosting plans this happens when many visitors arrive at once. If the error lasts longer than half an hour, ask your host.
Error 403 “Forbidden”: the server refuses access. This can be caused by wrong file permissions, a security rule, or your host suspending the account, for example because of an unpaid invoice.
Error 404 “Not Found”: the home page works, but a specific subpage doesn’t. Usually the page was renamed or deleted. Set up a redirect from the old address to the new one, otherwise visitors from Google and old links end up nowhere.
Step 3: Typical causes on small websites
In practice it is almost always the same five things:
- Domain not renewed. The invoice ended up in the spam folder or the stored credit card has expired.
- Certificate not renewed. Automatic renewal stopped working after a move or a change to the DNS records.
- Broken update. A plugin is not compatible with the new WordPress or PHP version.
- Storage full. Backups or log files have filled up the hosting plan, and the database can no longer write.
- Hack. The site suddenly redirects to strange websites, or the host has suspended it because of malicious code.
Step 4: Who to call
If the problem is with the domain or DNS, your domain provider is responsible. For errors in the 500 range or full storage, it is your hosting provider. If an update or a plugin is behind it, the web designer or agency that looks after your website can help.
Before you call, note since when the error has been happening, exactly which message appears and whether anything was changed beforehand. A screenshot of the result from the website checker saves a lot of back and forth.
Prevention is cheaper
Most website owners only notice an outage when customers complain. A monitoring service requests your website every few minutes and notifies you immediately when it is down. How this works and what it costs is explained in Website monitoring.
And if your site is regularly slow or goes down, that is often a sign that your hosting plan is no longer enough.