How to verify your site is offline globally

 

In some cases your website being offline does not always correlate to your web host being offline, in this guide we will go through the steps you can take to verify that your site is actually offline and what steps you can take to correct the issue.

Verifying if your website is actually offline through a third party

There are a number of third-party website uptime testers, but we recommend using Uptrends as they offer a free website testing tool that has a number of regions to choose from. Simply enter your website address and click enter, the tool will now begin testing the websites availability in a number of regions across the globe.

There are 2 scenarios that can happen:

  1. Site is offline: If the regions come back as non-responsive (Or red in most cases) then your web hosting provider is at fault. You will have to contact them directly to get it solved as nothing can be done on your end to rectify the issue.
  2. Site is online: If the site comes back as responsive (Or green in most cases) but is still down on your end please continue with the guide below.

Possible Cause #1: IP Banned

Website hosting providers use a firewall behind their servers that can sometimes ban your local internet IP from the server. Usually the IP will be removed within a certain timeframe, however if you would like access immediately try restarting your internet router, as this will re-set your IP in most cases and fix the issue.

However, if your IP is Static or does not change, then you might have to contact your hosting provider and provide them with your IP.

Possible Cause #2: DNS Related Issues

Make sure that your website hosting provider did not make any recent IP change to their servers, this can happen if a server upgrade or migration takes place. This only matters if you use a third-party DNS provider like Cloudflare or if you use custom nameservers, as you will have to change to the new IP within Cloudflare’s DNS dashboard or the IP of your custom nameservers.

If you simply use your provider’s default nameservers, then no changes have to be made as your web hosting provider should do the changes on their end. An example of default nameservers usually entail the web hosts domain name, such as the following

  • ns1.makigohost.com
  • ns2.makigohost.com

Possible Cause #3: Cloudflare is down

Albeit rare, Cloudflare also has some hiccups. Usually this is area-based so make sure Cloudflare is not down in your area. They provide a handy tool that can be used to monitor status based on area.

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