How to use it
- Type a domain such as example.com or paste a full link.
- Press Check and wait a few seconds.
- Read the verdict, the status code and the response time.
- If the site is up but not loading for you, follow the steps under the result.
How this website down checker works
When you press Check, your browser sends the address to our checker. The checker, which runs on a global cloud network, opens the address the way an ordinary browser would. It sends a normal GET request with browser-style headers, follows up to five redirects and waits at most eight seconds. It records the HTTP status code and the time until the first answer arrived.
Every redirect is checked again before we follow it, and addresses that point to private or internal networks are refused. That protects other people's systems and ours. Results are kept for about a minute, so ten people checking the same site do not send ten requests to it.
How to read the result
The verdict is based on what the server did, not on how the page looks. The table shows the rules we use.
| What we see | Verdict | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| 200 to 399, answered in under 4 seconds | Up | The site works. A problem you have is local or limited to one feature. |
| 200 to 399, answered after 4 seconds or more | Up, but slow | The server is overloaded or far away. Pages may time out. |
| 401, 403, 404, 429 | Up | The server answered but refused this request. It is running. |
| 500, 502, 503, 504 | Down | The server or a gateway in front of it failed. |
| 520 to 530 (Cloudflare) | Down | The content network cannot reach the real server. |
| No answer in 8 seconds, or no connection | Down | Outage, a firewall, or an address that does not exist. |
A worked example: you enter example.com and get HTTP 200 in 212 ms. The site is up and fast. You enter a shop address and get 503 after 1,900 ms. The server answered quickly, but it told us it cannot handle the request, which is typical for overload or maintenance. Both results are clear. A 403 after 140 ms is also clear: the machine is running and chose not to serve us.
What a down checker cannot tell you
It cannot see inside a login. A site can serve its home page and still fail when you sign in, pay or upload. It also tests from one location, so a regional outage may be invisible, and a site that blocks data center traffic can look broken to us while it works fine for you. If our result and your experience disagree, trust your experience for your own situation and use the result as one more clue.
For big services, the service pages are better than a single check. They test several addresses in the background and add problem reports from real users. See the list of services for games, social networks, streaming and AI tools.
If you run the site yourself
A down checker is a quick way to confirm an outage from the outside, but it is not monitoring. If your own site is the one that fails, look at three things in order. First, the hosting provider's status page and your dashboard, because a stopped server or an expired plan is the most common cause. Second, your domain: an expired domain or a wrong DNS record makes a site vanish while the server is fine. Third, the certificate, since an expired certificate blocks visitors with a security warning. Codes 521 to 523 on a site behind Cloudflare mean your origin server is refusing or not answering, so restart it and check its firewall.
Related guides
- Check if a website is down by hand: methods that need no tool.
- Why is a website not loading? Causes on your side, in order.
- HTTP status codes explained: what 403, 502 or 503 mean.
- How to flush DNS on every device.
Frequently asked questions
What is a website down checker?
It is a tool that requests a web address from a server on the internet and reports whether the site answered. Because the request does not come from your device, the result shows whether the site works for others, not only for you.
Does it work for any website?
It works for any public address on the standard web ports. Private networks, localhost and addresses with a user name or password are refused. Pages that need a login can only be tested up to the login page.
Why does a site show as up when I get an error page?
A 403 or 404 page is still an answer from a working server. The site is reachable, but that visitor or that exact page is refused. If you see such an error, the site is not down.
Can the checker be wrong?
Yes. We test from one place at one moment. A regional outage, a block in your country or a problem that only affects logged in users will not show up. Repeat the check after a minute if the result surprises you.
How often can I check a site?
You can check as often as you like within reason. Results are reused for about one minute, and each visitor is limited to a number of checks per minute so the tool cannot be used to hammer other sites.
Is the website owner told that I checked?
The site sees one normal request from our server, like any other visitor. We do not tell the owner who asked.