SteadyHost

Website down? How to find the cause

When your website isn't working, the first thing to find out is whether it's down for everyone or just for you. SteadyHost opens your homepage from its own server, the way a visitor would: it follows redirects, records the HTTP status code and measures how long it takes.

Check your website now

Is it you or the website?

Does your website fail to load for you, but load fine for SteadyHost? Then the problem is probably your own connection: a VPN, a corporate firewall, an outdated DNS answer cached on your computer, or your IP address being blocked by your website's security. Try it over mobile data as well.

If SteadyHost doesn't get a response either, the website is down for everyone and the cause lies with the server, the hosting or the DNS settings.

What the HTTP status code tells you

If the server does respond, the HTTP status code tells you what's going on.

  • 200 (and other 2xx codes): the page was found. This is how it should be.
  • 301, 302, 307 or 308: a redirect to another address. Normal, as long as it ends up at a working page.
  • 403 Forbidden: the server refuses the visitor. Often caused by a security plugin, an IP block, wrong file permissions or a missing index file.
  • 404 Not Found: the homepage doesn't exist at this address, for example after the site was moved to another folder.
  • 429 Too Many Requests: the server or a bot protection service is limiting the number of requests.
  • 500 Internal Server Error: the website itself is failing, for example because of a broken plugin or a bug in the code.
  • 502 Bad Gateway or 504 Gateway Timeout: a proxy or CDN can't reach the server behind it, or that server responds too slowly.
  • 503 Service Unavailable: the server is overloaded or in maintenance mode.

No response

Sometimes there's no status code at all. The most common causes:

  • The domain doesn't point to a server: there's no A or AAAA record. See the guide on DNS.
  • The connection is refused or hangs: the web server isn't running, or a firewall is blocking port 80 or 443.
  • A timeout: the server doesn't respond within 8 seconds.
  • A redirect loop: addresses keep redirecting to each other endlessly. A well-known example is a CDN that talks to your server over http://, while the server redirects http:// back to https://.

Check it yourself

With curl you can see the status code and the response time, including all redirects. Run the command from a different connection too, to rule out your own network.

Terminal
curl -sL -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} after %{num_redirects} redirect(s) in %{time_total}s\n' https://example.com

Reachable, but slow

SteadyHost measures the time until the HTML of your homepage has arrived, including redirects. Images, scripts and fonts don't count. If that takes longer than 3 seconds, the server itself is slow: think of a missing page cache, slow database queries, heavy plugins or an overloaded hosting plan.

It's a single measurement from a single location, so an occasional outlier can happen. To measure how fast the full page loads in the browser, use Google's PageSpeed Insights.

How SteadyHost rates availability

  • OK: the homepage responds within 3 seconds with a 2xx status.
  • Warning: the homepage responds with a 4xx status, takes longer than 3 seconds, or redirects without a target address.
  • Problem: the domain doesn't point to a server, the server doesn't respond (including after more than five redirects), or it returns a 5xx error.

Check your own website

A free check shows within seconds how your website is doing: availability, HTTPS and TLS, the SSL certificate, security headers, DNS and DNSSEC, domain registration and email security.

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