Site down? Here’s a step by step checklist.

First things first, breathe. A site going down feels like the world’s ending, but most “it’s down” moments are either a quick fix or a clue pointing to something bigger that’s been quietly building up. The key is to stop guessing and work the problem in order, so you don’t make it worse while you’re stressed.

Start by checking if it’s actually down for everyone. Open your site on your phone using mobile data, not your WiFi, and try it in an incognito window. If you can get on via data but not on WiFi, it’s likely your network, DNS cache, or a local browser issue. If nobody can get on, move to the next steps.

Check your monitoring and error messages before you touch anything. If you’ve got uptime monitoring, check the alert details and time of failure. If you’re seeing an error page, take a screenshot and copy the exact message. “500 error” and “database connection error” are very different problems, and the wording matters more than people think when you’re diagnosing quickly.

Now check your domain basics. Go to your domain provider and make sure the domain hasn’t expired and nothing’s changed in DNS. This happens more than anyone likes to admit, especially if the domain renewals are tied to an old card or an email nobody checks. If the DNS was edited recently, your site can look “down” while the changes propagate, so look at timestamps and change history if you have it.

Next, check your hosting status. Most decent hosts have a status page. If they’re having an outage, don’t waste an hour ripping your site apart trying to fix something that’s not yours to fix. If they say everything is fine, log into the hosting panel and look at server health, storage, and any warnings. A full disk can take a site out without warning and it’s a quick win if you catch it early.

If you can access your admin panel, do a fast change check. Ask a simple question and answer it honestly. What changed right before it went down. Plugin update, theme change, app install, code deployment, SSL change, DNS tweak, new integration, even a product import can trigger it. If you know what changed, you’ve already shortened your fix time massively.

If it’s WordPress and you’re getting a white screen or a 500 error, assume plugin or theme conflict until proven otherwise. If you can get into wp admin, disable your caching plugin first, then any security plugin, then anything recently updated. If you can’t get into wp admin, use your file manager or FTP and rename the plugins folder to force plugins off, then bring them back one by one. The aim is not “turn everything off forever”, it’s to find the exact thing that triggered the crash.

If it’s Shopify and the storefront is broken but the admin still works, check what’s been added to the theme. Most Shopify “down” issues aren’t Shopify being down, it’s theme code, third party scripts, or an app injecting something nasty. Disable any recently added app embeds, tracking scripts, and custom code snippets. If you’ve got a theme backup, duplicate the last known good theme and publish it as a temporary fix. You can then debug the broken version safely without losing trading time.

If it’s Magento and you’re seeing error pages or checkout failures, don’t start clicking updates in a panic. Check server resources, check if there was a deployment, check cron jobs, and check error logs. Magento is brilliant but it’s not forgiving when it’s been left to age. If the store has lots of extensions, one expired licence or a module conflict can cause failures that look random, but they’re usually repeatable once you find the trigger.

Check SSL certificates next because they cause proper chaos when they expire. If your site shows a security warning, or it’s only failing on https, you might have an expired certificate or misconfigured redirect. Most hosts show SSL status in the panel and it’s often a one click renew, but don’t assume it’ll fix itself.

Then check the boring stuff that takes sites down all the time. Have you run out of server space. Has a backup filled the disk. Has an image import ballooned storage. Has the database hit a limit. Has your email sending been blocked and is it backing up processes. These aren’t glamorous problems but they’re common, especially on busy sites that have grown without anyone doing regular housekeeping.

If you suspect it’s traffic related, check for spikes and bot activity. Look at your analytics, server logs, or your host dashboard for sudden surges. If you’ve been hit with a traffic flood, you might need to temporarily block aggressive bots, enable rate limiting, or get your caching and CDN switched on properly. It’s not about “more power”, it’s about controlling what’s hitting the site and stopping junk requests from hogging resources.

While you’re doing all this, keep a simple timeline. Write down the time it went down, what you checked, what you changed, and what happened. When people panic they try ten things at once and forget what they touched. A timeline stops you chasing your own tail and it makes handing it to a developer way faster if you need help.

If you need to escalate to support or a dev, send them a proper pack instead of “it’s down help”. Include the exact error message, screenshots, time of failure, what changed recently, what platform you’re on, what you’ve already tried, and whether admin access still works. That one message can be the difference between a fix in ten minutes or a full day of back and forth.

Once it’s back up, don’t just move on and hope it never happens again. Treat it like a warning light. If a small update took it down, the site’s fragile. That usually means too much layered on, stuff out of date, messy theme changes, or no safe process for updates. The real win is getting it to a point where updates and small changes don’t feel like playing with matches.

If you’re fed up of constantly putting out problems and you’d rather just understand what’s really going on behind your site, book a non sales discovery call with us. It’s just a straight conversation about your setup and where the weak spots might be. No slides. No pressure. Just clarity on what’s causing the stress and what would make it feel more solid going forward.