A step-by-step way to figure out whether a site is down for everyone or just for you, and what each result actually tells you.

A website not loading could mean a dozen different things: the server is down, DNS has not propagated, your own network has an issue, or an SSL certificate has expired. Guessing wastes time. Working through the checks in order tells you exactly where the problem sits.

Step 1: Confirm it is not just you

Before assuming a site is down, rule out your own connection or device. Try loading the site on a different network, such as switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data, or ask someone else to check. If it works for them and not you, the problem is local to your network, browser cache, or DNS resolver, not the website itself.

If you cannot easily ask someone else, SEOpeck's Website Status Checker checks a site's live status from an independent location, which settles the question in one click.

Step 2: Check basic connectivity

The Ping tool tests whether a server is responding at all, and how long it takes to reply. No response at all points toward the server being down or a firewall blocking the request. A slow but successful response points toward a performance problem rather than an outage.

Step 3: Check the HTTP status code

If the site loads but shows an error, the HTTP status code tells you what kind of error it is. A 5xx code (like 500 or 503) means the server itself hit a problem. A 4xx code (like 404 or 403) means the server responded fine but is refusing or cannot find the specific request. The HTTP Status Code Checker shows this directly, and the Redirect Checker is useful when a URL seems to be looping or landing somewhere unexpected.

Step 4: Check DNS

If the domain will not resolve at all, DNS is a likely suspect, especially after a recent domain or hosting change. The DNS Lookup tool shows the current A record and whether it points where you expect. If DNS was changed recently, it can take time to fully propagate, so a record that looks correct but is not working everywhere yet is not necessarily broken.

Step 5: Check the SSL certificate

Browsers block access outright to sites with an expired or misconfigured SSL certificate, which can look identical to the site being "down" at first glance. The SSL Checker confirms whether the certificate is valid and how long it has left before it expires, which is worth checking on a recurring basis, since a forgotten renewal is a surprisingly common cause of sudden outages.

Step 6: Check the mail and network layer, if relevant

If the issue is specifically email not arriving rather than the website itself, the MX Lookup tool confirms mail is routed correctly. For deeper server-side troubleshooting, the Open Port Checker tests whether a specific port is reachable, which is useful when a service on a server is unreachable but the server itself responds to a ping.

Putting it together

Confirm it is not local, check connectivity, read the status code, check DNS, then check SSL. Working through those five checks in order takes a couple of minutes and almost always identifies exactly where the problem is, instead of guessing and waiting for it to resolve itself.