It’s usually easy to check a site’s online status. But what you see isn’t always the same as what everyone else does. In this post, John Espirian explains a simple way to check whether a site really is up or down.
We’ve all been there. You try to access a website but find that it’s not responding. Perhaps it’s not important and so you decide to try again later. Or perhaps it is important and you decide to let someone know there’s a problem.
Website administrators appreciate when users do some basic checks before raising the red flag.
Typical conversation
User: Your site’s down.
Admin: No, it’s fine here.
User: But I can’t get in …
Why does such a situation arise?
The problem
Our browsing experiences are not all the same. There may be times when you’re unable to reach a website that’s working perfectly well for everyone else. This can happen for many reasons:
- Software: your antivirus program, web browser cache or cookies may be at fault
- Permissions: parental controls or corporate restrictions may prevent access
- Network: routing issues or other problems with your ISP could stop some sites loading
The solution
My top tip for checking whether a site is up or down is to use the following free service:
Down For Everyone Or Just Me – http://isitdownorjust.me
A free online service for checking whether a site is up or down.
The service is simple to use: enter the site name you’re trying to reach and click the or just me? link to check its status.
If you use the service regularly, you might want to create a bookmark that checks a specific site. To check my site, for example, the address would be http://isitdownorjust.me/espirian.co.uk/.
So, that’s it. Next time you need to check whether a site is up or down, you’ll know what to do.
