Do three things before you change anything. Confirm the site is down for everyone rather than just for you, note exactly what the screen says, and remember what changed in the last twenty-four hours. Those three answers point at the cause, and the wrong fix applied in a panic usually costs more than the outage.
This page is a triage guide. Match what you are seeing to the section below, then follow the link to the full fix.
Is it down for everyone, or only for you?
Check this before anything else, because roughly one call in five turns out to be a local problem rather than a real outage.
Open the site on your phone using mobile data rather than your office wifi. If it loads there, your site is fine and your own network, DNS cache or browser is the problem. Clear your DNS cache, try a different browser, and check whether a security plugin has locked out your IP address.
If it fails on mobile data too, it is a real outage. Move to the next section.
One more check worth thirty seconds: log into your hosting account. Many outages are an expired card, a suspended account, or a resource limit rather than anything technical. Hosts rarely phone you before they suspend a site.
What does the screen actually say?
The error message is the fastest route to the cause. Find yours in this table and follow the link.
| What you see | Usual cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Completely blank white page | PHP fatal error, usually a plugin or theme | White screen of death |
| “500 Internal Server Error” | Server-side error, corrupted .htaccess, memory limit | 500 internal server error |
| “Error establishing a database connection” | Wrong credentials, or the database server is down | Database connection error |
| “403 Forbidden” | Permissions, security plugin, or firewall rule | 403 forbidden error |
| “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance” | An update was interrupted and left a .maintenance file | Site down after a plugin update |
| Site loads but the layout is broken | Cache, CSS regeneration, or a builder problem | Elementor not working |
| Browser warning about an unsafe site | Malware or a blocklisting | Malware removal |
| Site loads but very slowly | Server, plugins or unoptimised assets | Fix a slow WordPress site |
| Admin works, front end does not | Theme or plugin conflict on the front end | Common WordPress errors |
If you see something not on this list, our roundup of common WordPress errors covers the rest.
What changed in the last twenty-four hours?
Almost every outage has a trigger, and naming it saves hours of guessing. Work backwards through this list.
Did anything update? Plugins, themes or WordPress core, automatically or by hand. This is the single most common cause, and the fix is to identify the plugin and roll that one back rather than restoring a backup. Our guide to a site down after a plugin update covers the whole sequence, including how to get back in when you are locked out of wp-admin.
Did you change hosts or DNS? Then you may be looking at a different server than your visitors are. Our guide to a site broken after migration covers what breaks and in what order.
Did anyone edit code or a template? A missing bracket in functions.php takes a site down instantly and completely.
Has traffic spiked? A campaign, a mention, or a bot flood can exhaust the resources on a shared plan. That looks identical to a crash from the outside.
Or did nothing change? Then suspect a security incident, an expired licence stopping a plugin from loading, or something failing at the host.
Could this be a hack?
Certain symptoms point at a compromise rather than a fault, and they need a different response.
Watch for a browser warning about an unsafe site, redirects to pages you do not recognise, spam posts you never published, admin accounts you did not create, or a sudden inability to log in. Our guide to signs your site is hacked covers how to confirm it.
If it is a compromise, two rules matter more than speed. Do not restore a backup taken after the breach, because it contains the malware. And change every password before you clean anything, or the attacker walks back in through the door you left open. Our first-hour guide for a hacked site sets out the order, and malware removal covers the cleanup.
What not to do while the site is down
Panic decisions during an outage cause more permanent damage than the outage itself. Four to avoid.
Do not restore a backup as a first move. A restore returns the whole site to the backup point, which erases every order, form entry and comment recorded since. On a store backed up nightly, restoring at 4pm can delete a day of orders. Try deactivating the plugin first. And if you do restore and it fails, our guide to a failed backup restore explains why every restore point can fail the same way.
Do not change five things at once. When the site comes back you will not know what fixed it, and you will not be able to prevent it happening again.
Do not delete anything. Deactivate and rename instead. Deleting a plugin during an outage is how a recoverable problem becomes a rebuild.
Do not ignore the clock. Every hour offline costs something, and there is a point where paying someone is cheaper than another afternoon of guessing.
What to tell your customers
Say something before they find out on their own. A short, specific message beats silence.
Post on whichever channel your customers actually use, name a realistic time for the next update, and give them another way to reach you. “We are aware the site is down and expect to update by 3pm, in the meantime call us on this number” holds up far better than nothing at all, and better than an optimistic estimate you then miss.
If you sell online, check whether orders placed during the outage went through before you tell anyone their payment failed.
How to stop it happening again
Three habits prevent most of what is on this page.
Update on a copy, not on the live site. A staging site removes almost every update-related outage, and most decent hosts include one.
Keep backups off the server. A backup stored on the same machine dies with the machine. Our WordPress backup guide covers setting that up, and the important part is testing a restore before you need one.
Have someone watching. Uptime monitoring tells you before a customer does, and the difference between finding out in five minutes and finding out the next morning is usually the difference between an incident and a lost weekend. Our WordPress care plans include that monitoring.
When should you stop and call someone?
Three signals, and any one of them is enough.
You have worked through the checks and still cannot say what is broken. The site is earning money and every hour offline has a number attached. Or the next step involves editing files over FTP and you are not confident about it.
There is no prize for fixing it yourself. Our guide to what a WordPress repair costs covers what emergency work usually runs, so you can weigh that against another afternoon of downtime.
Key takeaways
Confirm the outage is real before you touch anything, by loading the site on mobile data. Roughly one reported outage in five is a local network, DNS or IP-lockout problem.
Then match the error message to the cause using the table above, and work backwards through what changed in the last day. An update, a migration, a code edit, a traffic spike, or nothing at all, which usually points at a security incident.
And resist the two moves that turn an outage into a disaster: restoring a backup before you have diagnosed anything, and changing several things at once so nothing can be learned from the recovery.
Frequently asked questions
My website is down. What should I check first?
Load it on your phone using mobile data rather than wifi. If it works there, the problem is your own network, DNS cache or an IP lockout rather than the site. If it fails there too, check your hosting account for suspension or billing issues, then match the error message on screen to the cause.
Why is my website down when nothing changed?
Something usually changed without you doing it: an automatic plugin update, an expired licence, a hosting resource limit, or a certificate expiry. If none of those apply, treat a security incident as the likely cause, particularly with redirects, unfamiliar admin accounts or a browser warning.
Should I restore a backup when my site goes down?
Only after other options fail. A restore erases everything created since the backup ran, including orders and form submissions. Deactivating the plugin you last updated fixes most outages without touching your data, and it takes two minutes.
How long does it take to fix a website outage?
Most outages caused by a plugin or an update resolve in under an hour once the cause is identified. Hacks, database corruption and hosting failures take longer, from several hours to a full day. The identification is usually the slow part, not the fix.
How do I stop my website going down again?
Test updates on a staging site rather than the live one, keep backups off the same server and test a restore occasionally, and run uptime monitoring so you learn about an outage before a customer tells you. Those three habits prevent most repeat incidents.
Site still down and you need it back now?
If you have worked through this and still cannot say what is wrong, or the site is losing money while you read, hand it over rather than making it worse. Survyc is an AI-first digital agency that recovers broken WordPress sites for businesses and agencies, and we work white label so your own client sees your name on the fix. Send the URL and what you were doing when it broke. Get in touch or email info@survyc.com.
