My Website Is Down: What to Do First and Who to Call

Published October 20, 2026 · Curbside Websites

You pull up your site to send a link to a customer and get an error page. Or a neighbor texts you: "Hey, your website's broken." It's a bad feeling, especially in the middle of a busy week.

Here's the good news. Most of the time, a site being down is a boring problem with a boring fix. Usually a bill. Rarely a hacker. The hard part isn't the repair, it's knowing who to call. Let's fix that.

How do I know if my website is actually down?

Check it from a second device on a different network before you panic. Pull up the site on your phone with Wi-Fi turned off, using cell data only. If it loads there, the site is fine and something local is wrong: your office router, your browser cache, or your internet provider.

You can also paste your address into a free checker like downforeveryoneorjustme.com. It takes five seconds and tells you whether the problem is you or the world.

One more quick check: try both yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com. Sometimes only one of the two breaks, and that detail tells whoever fixes it exactly where to look.

What's the first thing to do when my website is down?

Answer one question: who do I pay? Not who built it. Who gets money from you, and for what.

A local service business website usually involves three separate pieces, and they are frequently three separate companies:

• The domain registrar. Where you bought yoursite.com. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains (now Squarespace), Network Solutions.
• The host. The computer your site actually lives on. Could be Bluehost, SiteGround, Wix, Squarespace, WordPress.com, or the agency that built it.
• The builder or maintainer. The person or company who made the thing and may or may not still touch it.

Open your email and search for "renewal," "invoice," "receipt," and "domain." Check your bank or card statement for recurring charges. In ten minutes you'll usually find the answer. Write it down somewhere permanent when you do.

What usually causes a site to go down?

In rough order of how often I see it with trades:

1. The domain expired. The card on file expired, the renewal notice went to an old email, and the domain lapsed. The site itself is perfectly fine, nobody can get to it.
2. The hosting bill didn't go through. Same story, different company. Hosts usually suspend the account and show a parked page.
3. The SSL certificate expired. Browsers throw a big scary warning instead of your site. Technically it's still up, but no customer is clicking past that screen.
4. An update broke something. On WordPress especially, a plugin or theme update can white-screen a site. This one needs a human.
5. The host had an outage. Rare, usually brief, and nothing you can do but wait. Check the host's status page or X account.

Hacking exists, but it's far down the list for a plumber's five-page site. Don't start there.

Who do I call for each problem?

Match the symptom to the company:

• Browser says "this site can't be reached" or the domain is for sale: call your registrar. Expired domains can usually be renewed and restored the same day. Act fast. After a grace period, the price to get it back goes up a lot, and eventually someone else can buy it.
• You see a host's parked page or "account suspended": call your host. It's almost always billing. Pay it and the site is usually back within the hour.
• You see a security warning about the certificate: call whoever manages hosting. Most hosts can reissue a free certificate in minutes.
• The site loads but looks broken, blank, or half-missing: call your developer or maintenance provider. This is the one case where you need someone who knows the site.
• Everything is paid and nobody knows anything: call the host's support line, not email. Hosts have phone support and they can see what's happening on the server right now.

When you call, have your domain name, the account email, and the exact error message ready. It cuts the call in half.

How do I keep booking jobs while the site is down?

This matters more than the repair. A landscaper booked through July can survive a day offline. A new business running on two leads a week cannot.

• Your Google Business Profile is still live. It's a separate system and it does not go down with your site. Most people find local businesses through Google anyway, and your profile has your phone number, hours, photos, and reviews.
• Post an update on your profile. One line: "Website maintenance today. Call or text us at [number], we're answering."
• Remove the website link temporarily if the site is showing an error or a security warning. Sending people to a scary red screen is worse than sending them nowhere.
• Check your Facebook page and any directory listings. Make sure your phone number is on them and correct.

If you run any advertising, pause it. You are paying for clicks that land on a broken page.

How long should a fix take?

Billing issues: minutes to a few hours once you pay. Domain renewals can take a little longer to propagate across the internet, sometimes up to a day, though usually much faster. A broken plugin or a restore from backup is typically same-day for anyone competent. If someone tells you a five-page site needs a week, get a second opinion.

How do I stop this from happening again?

Three things, and they take one afternoon:

1. Put the domain and hosting on autopay with a card that isn't about to expire. Then set a calendar reminder a month before each renewal date anyway.
2. Make sure the renewal emails go to an address you check. Not an old Yahoo account, not a former employee's inbox, not the guy who built the site in 2016.
3. Write down your stack on one page. Registrar, host, builder, logins, renewal dates. Keep it in your password manager or a note on your phone. Make sure one other person in the business can find it.

That last one is the real lesson. Downtime is annoying. Downtime plus "I have no idea who hosts this and the guy who built it stopped answering" is a genuine business problem. If you can't answer the who-do-I-pay question today, go answer it today, while nothing is broken.

Common Questions

Can I lose my domain name if it expires?

Yes, eventually. Most registrars give you a grace period of several weeks to renew at the normal price, then a redemption period where recovery costs substantially more. After that the name goes back on the open market and anyone can buy it, so renew as soon as you notice.

My website is down but my email still works. What does that mean?

Usually it means the domain is fine and the problem is with your hosting or the site files, since email often runs through a separate service like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Start with your host.

Does my Google ranking drop if my site is down for a day?

A short outage of a few hours to a day rarely causes lasting damage. Google retries. Extended downtime over days or weeks is a different story, and so is leaving a security warning up where customers see it.

Should I pay for a monthly maintenance plan to prevent downtime?

If your site runs on WordPress with plugins, a small maintenance plan is usually worth it because updates are the most common cause of breakage. If you're on a hosted platform like Squarespace or a simple managed site, you probably don't need one beyond keeping the bills paid.

How can I find out who hosts my website if I don't know?

Look through your email and card statements for recurring charges first. If that turns up nothing, a free WHOIS lookup will show your domain registrar, and the registrar's support team can often point you toward where the domain is being directed.