There are many reasons why a website would suddenly stop working. It’s important to know what to do in order to get your site back up and running. It’s frustrating for the user experience, and also for the web admin when the traffic drops.
Common Issues That Take a Website Down
Server Issues
If you have an issue with the server that hosts your website, this can cause your entire site to go down. This is usually due to a problem with the web host or their servers. You should contact them immediately if this happens so they can resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Technical Issues
There are also technical issues that can take a website offline. It’s generally not the entire website that is down, but rather, a web page. Broken pages can occur with broken links on pages, missing images, etc. The best way to fix these problems is to check each page individually for any errors.
Security Issues
Another common reason websites go down is because of security issues. Hackers will often try to exploit vulnerabilities on your site in order to gain access to information about your customers. They may even use your site to send spam messages to people who visit your site.
Compatibility Issues
Sometimes, when you upgrade your website, you’ll need to make sure that all of the plugins and themes work together. If one doesn’t work properly, then other parts of the website won’t load either. This is especially true if you’re using a WordPress theme. You should always test out new versions of plugins before updating your site.
DNS Issues
DNS stands for Domain Name System. When someone types in a URL into their browser, the DNS system translates that address into the IP address. A lot of times, we don’t realize that our DNS settings aren’t set correctly. So, if your domain name isn’t pointing to the correct IP address, then your website won’t load.
Network Issues
Your internet connection might be having some sort of issue. It could be a slow speed, or it could be something else entirely. If you’re experiencing network issues, it’s recommended that you call your ISP to see what the problem is.
Outage Issues
Outages can happen at any time. If you notice that your website has gone down, there are a couple of things you can do to help prevent this from happening again. First, make sure that you have backups of your site. Second, you should always test out new features before putting them live. Third, you should monitor your site closely to ensure that everything is functioning properly.
Website Maintenance Issues: Sometimes websites need maintenance to be done on them. For example, WordPress sites often require updates when new versions of the software come out.
Content Delivery Network Issues
CDN stands for Content Delivery Networks. These networks store your files close to where visitors are coming from. This allows you to serve your files faster than if you were storing them locally.
Hosting Issues: Hosting refers to the place where your website lives.
File and Folder Issues
Files and folders can get deleted accidentally. Or, sometimes, they can become corrupted. In both cases, you’ll want to make sure that you back up your files regularly. If you have been using FTP lately, you may need to check your permissions. Make sure that you know how to change those permissions so that only certain users can edit specific files.
Learn More about File Permissions
Software Updates
Updates to your software can cause issues as well. Some programs update automatically while others require manual intervention. Either way, it’s important that you keep an eye on your software so that you can catch any issues before they become too big.
PHP Issues
PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a programming language used by web developers to create dynamic pages. The most popular version of PHP is 5.4.5. However, many sites still run on older versions of PHP.
What To Do If Your Website Crashes
When your website crashes, it means that it’s no longer accessible by anyone. If you’ve ever been to a website and suddenly couldn’t get back onto it, then you know how frustrating it can be. There are several ways to recover from a crash. Here are the most popular ones.
Check Memory Usage
If your memory usage seems high, try restarting your server. It’s possible that the server has run out of memory. If so, then you will need to increase the amount of RAM available to the server.
Restart Apache
Apache is the main program that runs your website. You can restart it manually by typing “sudo service apache2 restart” into your terminal.
Recover From A Crash Using SSH
SSH stands for Secure Shell. It’s a secure protocol that allows you to access your computer remotely. When you use SSH, you can log in to your computer with a username and password. Once logged in, you can perform tasks like installing software or backing up your data.
You can also use SSH to connect to your server via the command line. This lets you see what’s going on with your server without having to open up another browser window.
Use SSH to Restart Apache
To restart Apache, type “sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart”.
Restore Backups
Sometimes, even after you do everything else, your site won’t work properly. This could happen because something went wrong during the backup process. If this happens to you, then you should restore your backups.
Here’s how to do it. First, find the folder where your backups are stored. Then, go inside that folder and look for the file called “.zip”. Open that file and extract its contents. Finally, copy all the files over to your new server.
Check Your Log Files
If you use a hosting service like Bluehost, then you can access your log files through their control panel. You can find these in your cPanel. They will tell you exactly what went wrong with your site. The Apache error log files contain information about errors that occurred during the request process. The MySQL error log file contains information about all database queries.
Change Your DNS Settings
If you haven’t already changed your DNS settings, then you should do so immediately. This will change the way that your computer looks up addresses. Instead of looking up an address like www.example.com, your computer will look up www.example.com.your-isp.net instead.
Try Another Server
If none of these methods worked, try switching servers. If you’re not familiar with how to switch servers, then ask your web host for help. They should be able to walk you through the process.
Check Your Web Server Software
Your web server software handles requests made by visitors to your website. If you don’t have the right version of this software, then your site may not load correctly. To check if you have the correct version installed, visit your hosting company’s support page.
Get Help
Call Jeff and Paul Helvin at Ballen Brands. They may be able to help you get your website back up, move it to another host, or rebuild where necessary. 702-917-0755.
FAQ
The most common answer is “Sorry, we’re experiencing technical difficulties”. If you want to be polite, you could add something like “We’re working hard to fix the issue as soon as possible.”
It usually means that the website is experiencing some sort of trouble. It could be a temporary glitch or a major outage. The website is not loading when someone types in the URL, or clicks on a link.
There are many reasons why this happens. Some of them include:
– A hacker broke into the website and changed its files.
– A virus infected the website.
– someone accidentally deleted all of the website’s files.
– The website owner decided to change things around and make the website look different.
– The website got hacked.
– The website got shut down by the authorities.
– There’s an outage with your host
– There’s a compatibility issue with a Plugin
This depends on what caused the outage. A hack might only last for a few minutes while a virus infection could last for hours. If the website went down because of a security breach, then it will probably stay offline for quite some time. However, if it happened because of a software update, then it might only be down for a day or two.
Servers go down for lots of different reasons. Here are just a few examples:
A hacker breaks into the server and changes the code.
A virus infects the server.
Somebody deletes all of the files on the server.
The server gets overloaded with traffic.
The server runs out of disk space.
The server crashes.
The server overheats.
The server gets flooded with spam messages.
It’s a nightmare when a website goes down. Oftentimes, a website crashes due to no fault of the web admin. It could be a hosting issue, a down server, a compatibility issue, or even a network problem. Whatever the case, there’s nothing you can do except wait until the site comes back online.
When a website goes down, the first thing people do is try to find another way to get information from the site. They’ll search Google, Bing, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, etc., but oftentimes these sites won’t work properly. Sometimes, they’ll even give up and move on to other websites.
However, if you have a backup system set up, you shouldn’t lose any sleep over a website going down. You can always restore a backup copy of the website to a new domain name. This is especially true if you use WordPress.
I hope this article helped you understand how to deal with a website going down.
