What to do when your website goes down

When your website goes down, here is a quicklist of what to check.

1) Is the site down for just you, or is the site down for everyone?

You can check if your website is down here:  http://www.isup.me/

If it's just you, there is something wrong with your Internet Service Provider or possibly with your machine or current internet setup. Check the plugs and wires, make sure everything is turned on, and try restarting your machine.

2) Is your domain name in order?

You can check http://www.whois.com or http://www.godaddy.com for the current domain details -- who is the owner, when was the domain registered, and when does the domain name expire?

If your domain name has expired, you'll want to re-register it again, if possible.

3) Is the hosting in order?

You can check your hosting package details through your hosting provider. In our case, this is either 10kHosting.com (for PHP sites) or Nexcess.net (for Drupal sites). If your hosting has expired, you'll want to renew your hosting so the site can go back online.

4) Is there a problem with the existing host?

Sometimes the support team at your hosting provider will have issues with their machines. Check the website or the Twitterstream (do a search for the hosting company's Twitter account) to see what the situation is.

5) Is text looking a little strange on the site, or is there a piece of the page missing?

It's possible that there is some code somewhere in your page that is suppressing the rest of the page, such as a unclosed tag or some missing HTML symbols. What was the last thing that happened on the website? Was someone working on it? Identify exactly the situation that led to the current situation.

6) Is there a problem with the content management system or files used to create the site?

This is where your web designer/developer comes in. If a module is out-of-date, or the site breaks during an upgrade, this is when you can call the web design company.

7) Is e-mail working? Use Gmail, Yahoo, or another provider to send an e-mail to your e-mail address (e.g. you@companyname.com).

If you never receive that e-mail, then it may be localized to the mailserver. Contact your hosting provider or support team there.

Most of the above is made easier if you know all the logins and passwords for each of your properties.

When we document a site, we help you organize:

Domain Name Details:

Registrar

Username

Password

Domain expiration date

Hosting Details:

Control Panel Username

Password

PIN or call-in code

Database Details:

Database name

Database user

Database password

CMS Login

Administrator login

Administrator password

Administrator e-mail