Website down: who do you actually call?

Check whether it is down for everyone first, then call your host. Most outages are hosting, expired domains or a failed SSL certificate.

A1 Digital · written & reviewed by the team 1 October 2026 4 min read Updated 1 October 2026

Quick answer

If your website is down, check whether it is down for everyone or just you, then call your hosting company, because they cause or can fix most outages. The three usual causes are a hosting problem, an expired domain and a lapsed SSL certificate, and two of those are billing rather than technical.

3 causes

hosting, expired domain, lapsed SSL, in that order of likelihood

Host first

who to ring, because they can see what your developer cannot

Billing

the cause of more outages than any technical fault

If your website is down, ring your hosting company. They can see server status, error logs, disk space and whether your account has been suspended, none of which your web designer can. But before you ring anyone, spend two minutes on the checks below, because a surprising number of outages are not outages at all.

Two minutes before you call anyone

1. Is it down for everyone?

Try downforeveryoneorjustme.com, or load the site on your phone with wifi off. If it works, the problem is your own network, browser cache or DNS, and the site is fine.

2. What does the error actually say?

'This site can't be reached' points at DNS or the domain. A 500 error points at the site or server. 'Your connection is not private' points at SSL. Each sends you somewhere different.

3. Has the domain expired?

A free WHOIS lookup shows the expiry date. Expired domains stop resolving, and this happens more than anyone admits, usually because the renewal email went to an address nobody reads.

4. Is it the SSL certificate?

If the site loads but browsers warn it is not secure, the certificate has lapsed. Usually a quick fix at the host and often free to renew.

5. Then ring the host

With the error message in hand. You will get a faster answer than saying 'my website is broken'.

The error message is the diagnosis

Take a screenshot of exactly what you see before ringing anyone. ‘The site is down’ takes a support agent twenty minutes to narrow down. ‘I am getting a 500 internal server error on every page’ gets you a fix in five. The words on the screen genuinely matter.

What actually causes outages

Cause	How it looks	Who fixes it
Hosting problem or suspension	500 error, or a host holding page	Your host
Expired domain	Site cannot be reached at all	Your registrar, pay the renewal
Lapsed SSL certificate	Loads with a 'not secure' warning	Your host, usually free
Failed update or plugin clash	White screen or 500 error	Whoever maintains the site
Hacked	Redirects elsewhere, or odd content	Host plus whoever maintains it
Traffic spike	Very slow, then times out	Your host, likely an upgrade

Notice that the top three, which are also the most common, are all effectively billing and admin rather than engineering. Websites go down because something did not get paid or renewed far more often than because something technically broke.

Who to call, in order

Your host for anything server-related, and this is the right first call in most cases. They have the logs and can see things nobody else can. A decent host has a phone number or live chat and acknowledges within the hour.

Your domain registrar if the domain has expired or DNS looks wrong. Often the same company as your host, sometimes not.

Whoever maintains the site if the server is fine but the site itself is broken: a failed update, a plugin clash, a hack. If nobody maintains it, that is the actual answer to why this happened.

Nobody, and wait if it is down for you but not for anyone else. Clear your cache, try a different network, and get on with your day.

If you do not know who hosts you

Common, and solvable in a few minutes.

Check bank and card statements for recurring payments to hosting companies. Names like SiteGround, Krystal, 20i, GoDaddy, Ionos, Hostinger and Cloudways come up constantly.

A WHOIS lookup on your domain shows the registrar, which is often also the host. Failing that, whoever built your site knows, and this is a reasonable thing to ask them even if you have not spoken in years.

The fact that you do not know is worth fixing once the site is back up. Write it down somewhere you will find it.

Reducing the damage next time

Uptime monitoring. Free tools will text you when the site goes down, so you find out before a customer does. This alone is worth setting up this week.

Automatic renewals on both the domain and hosting, with a card that will not expire, and the renewal notices going to an address someone actually reads.

Backups you have tested. A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope. Ask whoever maintains your site when they last tested one.

Know the escalation path. Write down your host, your registrar, your logins and who to ring, and keep it somewhere accessible when the website itself is unavailable. That last detail catches people out.

The awkward question this raises

If your website going down leaves you unsure who to ring, that is the real finding rather than the outage itself.

Most small businesses discover during an outage that they do not know where the site is hosted, who owns the domain, or whether anyone is maintaining it. The outage gets fixed and the underlying gap stays. It is worth an hour, on a calm day, to write down the four accounts that matter: domain, hosting, website admin, Google Business Profile.

Background on the moving parts is in what is web hosting and what is an SSL certificate.

Our managed plans include hosting, uptime monitoring, backups and someone to ring, at £49-£199 a month with no contract, which removes the question entirely. The pricing page has the detail. If your site is down right now and you are not a customer, send us the web address and the error message and we will tell you which of the three usual causes it looks like, free.

Frequently asked questions

My website is down. Who should I call?

Your hosting company first. They can see server status, disk space, error logs and whether your account is suspended, which nobody else can. If you do not know who hosts you, a WHOIS lookup on your domain and a check of your bank statements for recurring payments will usually reveal it.

Why do websites go down?

Most often a hosting problem, an expired domain, or a lapsed SSL certificate. Two of those three are billing rather than technical, which is why the first thing to check is whether something needed paying. Beyond that it is failed updates, hacks, or traffic spikes on cheap hosting.

How do I know if my site is down for everyone or just me?

Use a free checker like downforeveryoneorjustme.com, or try loading the site on your phone with wifi turned off. If it works there, the problem is your own network or browser cache, not the website, and there is nothing to fix.

How long should a host take to fix an outage?

A decent host acknowledges within an hour and resolves most issues the same day. If your host takes days, or has no phone number and no live chat, that is worth knowing before the next outage rather than during it.

website down outage hosting ssl emergency troubleshooting

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Written by the A1 Digital team

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