A site "being down" usually isn't as simple as offline vs. online. It might be completely unreachable, it might be crawling because a server is overloaded, or it might be perfectly fine everywhere except your network. This tool tests the actual connection from several locations at once so you get a straight answer instead of a guess.
How to check a site in 3 steps
Down for everyone, or just you?
This is the question almost everyone lands on this page to answer. Here's the short version:
| Our checker shows | What it means | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| UP | The site answers fine from outside locations — the issue is most likely local to you. |
Clear your browser cache, flush DNS (ipconfig /flushdns
on Windows), switch networks, or try disabling
extensions.
|
| DOWN | Nobody outside can reach it either — this is a real outage. | Check the site's official social accounts for a status update, or just wait a few minutes — most outages are short. |
Worth knowing: huge platforms like Netflix or Amazon often serve traffic from many data centers, so it's genuinely possible for our test and someone else's tool to disagree for a minute or two while things propagate. If both keep saying "down" for more than a few minutes, treat it as a real outage.
Why sites actually go down
When a check comes back negative, it's almost always one of a handful of causes:
| Cause | What you'll notice | What our checker sees |
|---|---|---|
| Server overload | Very slow loading, or the page eventually times out | High response times, 5xx status codes |
| DNS problem | Browser can't even find the site | Domain fails to resolve |
| Network routing issue | Connection just hangs | Connection refused or timed out |
| Scheduled maintenance | A "service unavailable" message | HTTP 503 |
| Expired domain or SSL certificate | Browser security warning, or the domain doesn't load at all | Certificate or resolution errors |
Reading your results
Each check returns three things worth understanding:
Response time
How fast the server answered, in milliseconds.
Status code
The HTTP code the server sent back (200 = OK).
Global status
Whether the issue shows up from other locations too.
If a check returns an error code instead of a clean 200, here's what each one means:
| Code | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 200 | OK | Site is online and responding normally |
| 301 / 302 | Redirect | Site is redirecting — usually still accessible |
| 400 | Bad Request | The server couldn't understand the request |
| 403 | Forbidden | Access denied — the site is up but blocking access |
| 404 | Not Found | Page doesn't exist — server is up, page is gone |
| 500 | Internal Server Error | Generic server-side error — the site is having problems |
| 502 | Bad Gateway | Proxy/CDN received an invalid response from the origin server |
| 503 | Service Unavailable | Server overloaded or under maintenance — usually temporary |
| 504 | Gateway Timeout | Server took too long to respond — often a load or routing issue |
Who this is for
Some people land here mid-panic because a favourite site won't load. Others check it as part of their day-to-day work. Both are welcome.
Website owners
- Confirm an outage before your users tell you about it
- Verify a fix actually went live
- Check performance from outside your own network
Everyday visitors
- Check if a popular site is actually down
- Tell a local issue apart from a global one
- Troubleshoot a connectivity problem
Developers & agencies
- Sanity-check a deployment or a client's server
- Confirm an API endpoint is actually reachable — our API Testing Tool is handy for digging further
- Need a mock endpoint to test against instead? Try our free dummy JSON API
A couple of quick tips
- Bookmark this page — it's faster than searching for it again next time
- If you suspect an intermittent issue, run the check two or three times a few minutes apart