Website offline: the safe first checks
An offline website is urgent, but repeated restarts and rushed DNS changes can hide the real fault. Start by proving what visitors actually experience.
Written and reviewed by Flow Webdesign recovery engineering — WordPress, hosting, DNS and full-stack systemsPublished 24 July 2026Last reviewed 24 July 2026
1. Confirm the outage
- Open the website on a second connection, such as mobile data, and try one internal page.
- Record the exact message, status code and time. Take a screenshot without exposing private information.
- Check whether the hosting provider reports an incident.
2. Check the public boundaries
- Confirm the domain has not expired and the visible address is spelled correctly.
- Inspect the certificate warning and expiry date, but do not bypass a security warning.
- If email and the website failed together, record that because DNS or hosting may be the shared boundary.
3. Know when to stop
- Stop if the site shows a database error, repeated 500 error or unfamiliar server message.
- Stop if checkout, customer accounts or personal data may be affected.
- Give support the evidence you collected instead of changing several systems at once.
Still blocked after the safe checks?
Send Flow the exact error, when it started and the checks you completed. Never send passwords through the form.
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