Before you reboot your router or blame your ISP, confirm whether the outage is real. These five methods, from fastest to most thorough, give you a reliable answer in under a minute.
1. Use a down-for-everyone checker
A server-side checker like WebsiteDownOrNot makes a real request from a data center and tells you if the site responds. One URL, one answer, ten seconds.
2. Test on another device or network
If your laptop fails but your phone on mobile data loads the site, the problem is your local network — not the website.
3. Check a live outage board
Real outages create crowds. Our live directory and outage board show when many users report the same site at the same time — a strong signal of a genuine incident.
4. Look at the site's own signals
Search social media for "site name down" and sort by latest. A spike in posts within the last hour usually confirms a widespread outage.
5. Run technical diagnostics
For certainty, check the domain's DNS records and SSL certificate. A domain that no longer resolves or has an expired certificate is definitively broken for everyone.
Putting it together
If the checker fails, other networks fail, and people are complaining — it's down for everyone, and all you can do is wait (or set a back-up alert so you know the moment it recovers).