How to Check If a Website Is Down
A site won't load — but is it really down, or is it just your device or network? Here's a quick, reliable way to tell the difference, and how to stop checking by hand altogether.
Is It Down for Everyone, or Just You?
Work through these in order — they isolate whether the problem is the website or your side.
- Try another device on a different network. Open the site on your phone using cellular data (not Wi-Fi). If it loads there, the issue is probably local to your computer or network.
- Try incognito / a different browser. This rules out a cached page or a misbehaving browser extension.
- Clear your cache and flush DNS. A stale DNS entry can send you to an old or wrong address. Reloading with cache cleared, or flushing DNS, often fixes a "just me" outage.
- Use an external site checker. Check the site from outside your network to see if it's down for everyone. You can run a free check here.
- Look at the exact error. A security warning suggests an SSL problem; a database error or white screen suggests the application; a timeout suggests the server or network.
Website Problem vs. Your Problem
The checks above sort outages into two buckets.
It's the website
It fails on every device and network, and an external checker also can't reach it. That points to hosting, DNS, SSL, the application, or the domain. See why a website goes down.
It's your side
It works on another network or device. The likely cause is your local cache, DNS, browser, or ISP — not the website itself.
Better Than Checking by Hand: Monitor It
Manually checking only tells you about right now, and only if you remember to look.
Website uptime monitoring checks your site continuously from outside your hosting and keeps a history of availability and response time — and downtime monitoring alerts you by email, SMS, Slack, Teams or Google Chat the moment it can't reach your site, so you never have to wonder whether it's just you.
Stop Checking by Hand
Site Detection watches your website 24/7 and alerts you the moment it goes down — by email, SMS, Slack, Teams or Google Chat.
Start Monitoring Your WebsiteFrequently Asked Questions
How do I check if a website is down or if it's just me?
Try the site from a different device and a different network — for example your phone on cellular data instead of Wi-Fi. If it loads there, the problem is likely local to your device or network (cache or DNS). If it fails everywhere, the website itself is probably down. An external site checker confirms it from outside your network.
Why does a website load for me but not for someone else?
Local caching, a stale DNS entry, a browser extension, or a network/ISP issue can make a site work for one person and not another. Clearing the cache, trying incognito mode, switching networks, or flushing DNS usually isolates whether the problem is on your side.
What's the best way to know a website is down without checking manually?
Continuous monitoring. Site Detection checks the website around the clock from outside your hosting and sends email, SMS, Slack, Teams or Google Chat alerts when it detects downtime, so you don't have to keep checking by hand.