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The website is not loading, a customer has just mentioned it, and the instinct is to start changing things. Resist that — most website outages have four or five possible causes with completely different fixes, and changing settings blindly turns a ten-minute problem into a two-day one. Work through the checks in order and the cause usually identifies itself within minutes.
What matters here
- Confirm it is actually down — for everyone, not just your device or network.
- Check the domain before the server — expiry is a common and instantly recognisable cause.
- Check billing — an expired card suspends hosting exactly like a technical fault.
- Change nothing until you know — random edits during an outage are how outages get longer.
The main options
Run the sequence in this order. First, test from mobile data and ask someone else — browser caching and local networks produce convincing false alarms. Second, run a WHOIS lookup on your domain: if it has expired, nothing else matters and renewal is the entire fix. Third, log into your hosting account and check for suspension notices or unpaid invoices, which look identical to technical failures from outside. Fourth, check whether the certificate has lapsed, since SSL problems produce warnings people read as the site being broken. Only then look at the site itself — and if you are on managed WordPress hosting, restoring a recent backup is faster than diagnosing a bad update.
A caution on the panic edit
The most expensive thing during an outage is a change made without knowing the cause — editing DNS, reinstalling software, deleting files. If you reach the end of the sequence without an answer, contact your host with what you have ruled out. That conversation is far shorter and more productive than one that begins after you have altered four settings.
How to choose
Afterwards, fix the cause rather than the symptom. Expired domain means auto-renewal was off. Suspended hosting means the card on file needs updating. A bad update means backups and a staging habit. Repeated unexplained downtime means your hosting is the problem, and migration is free — so staying is a choice rather than a constraint.