Is It Down? Website Down Checker

What the Is It Down? Website Down Checker checks

A website down checker tells you whether a site answers when it is requested from somewhere other than your own device. When a page will not load for you, the cause can be your connection, your DNS resolver, a browser extension or a company firewall, or it can be the site itself. A check from another location separates the two.

This tool requests the URL you enter from our server in Germany, right now, and reports the HTTP status code, the time to first byte, the total response time, every redirect hop and the final URL. When the request fails, it tells you why: the domain does not resolve in DNS, the server refused the connection, the request timed out, the TLS handshake failed, or the server answered with a 5xx error. It is one request from one location, not a global monitoring network, so a site that is down or blocked only in some regions can look fine here.

Why it matters

The failure type tells you where to look. A DNS error points at the domain, its name servers or an expired registration. A refused connection or a timeout points at the server, its firewall or the hosting provider. A TLS error usually means an expired or misconfigured certificate. A 5xx status means the web server is running but the application behind it, or the upstream it proxies to, is failing.

Slow responses matter even when a site is technically up. A time to first byte of several seconds is often the first sign of an overloaded server or a struggling database, and for visitors it feels much like an outage.

How to fix common problems

If the site is down for everyone, start with the error type. For DNS errors, check that the domain has not expired and that its name server records are correct; see our DNS infrastructure guide. For refused connections and timeouts, check that the web server is running, that the firewall allows ports 80 and 443, and whether your host reports an incident. For TLS errors, renew or reinstall the certificate with its full chain (TLS certificates).

For 5xx errors, read the web server and application logs. A 502 or 504 from a proxy or CDN usually means the origin behind it is down or too slow, while a 500 comes from the application itself. Our guide to HTTP status codes explains each one.

If the site is up here but not for you, try another network or DNS resolver, clear the browser cache and disable extensions. To hear about outages before your visitors do, set up monitoring: PerfoMetrix monitors scan your site on a schedule and email you when it becomes unreachable, and a free account includes one weekly monitor.

Questions

Is the site down for everyone or just me?

If this tool gets a normal response but you cannot load the site, the problem is most likely between you and the site: your network, DNS resolver, browser or a regional block. If the tool fails too, the site is down or at least unreachable from Germany.

Why does the site work here but not in another country?

This is one check from one location. CDNs, geo-blocking and regional network problems can make a site reachable in one place and not in another.

What counts as a slow response?

Google's guidance treats a time to first byte of 0.8 seconds or less as good. A single measurement varies with server load and distance, so repeat the check before drawing conclusions.

Can I get an alert when my site goes down?

Yes. A free account includes one monitor that re-scans a site weekly and emails you when it stops responding; Pro raises this to ten sites checked daily. These are scheduled scans, not minute-by-minute uptime checks.