A website outage can interrupt customer inquiries, damage confidence in your business, and take time to resolve. A clear recovery plan helps your team respond quickly.
Common causes include local network problems, expired domains, DNS errors, hosting outages, software failures, and security incidents. Keep the right contact details and recovery information available before an outage occurs.
Network problems
Start by checking whether you can reach other websites. If several sites are unavailable, investigate your internet connection or device. Test your website from a phone using mobile data to help distinguish a local connection problem from a wider outage.
- Prepare: Keep your internet service provider’s contact details and account information available, along with your hosting provider’s support details.
- Respond: Contact your internet service provider for local connectivity problems. If other websites work but yours does not, ask your hosting provider to check the service and investigate DNS.
Domain expiration
An expired domain can make a working website appear unavailable. Some registrars replace the website with an expiration notice or a parking page.
- Prepare: Know your registrar, retain account access, record the renewal date, and keep payment details current. Use a recovery email address that does not depend on the domain being renewed.
- Respond: Sign in to the registrar and review the domain’s renewal or recovery options.
DNS errors
DNS connects your domain name to services such as your website and email. Your DNS provider may be the same company as your registrar or hosting provider, but these services can also be managed separately.
- Prepare: Record your DNS provider and account access details. Export a copy of the DNS zone; public lookups may not reveal every record.
- Respond: Compare the current records with your saved configuration and ask your DNS or hosting provider to investigate any differences.
Hosting outages
A hosting service can become unavailable for several reasons. Contact the provider to understand the incident before deciding whether recovery or migration is necessary. A current backup and accurate DNS information make either option easier.
- Prepare: Confirm how to reach your provider, review its support responsiveness, and retain a current copy of your website backup.
- Respond: Ask the host about service restoration. If a migration is required, work with a developer to restore the site and update its DNS records.
Website errors
A failed update or configuration change can affect part of a website or prevent it from loading entirely. A recent backup provides a recovery option while the underlying problem is investigated.
- Prepare: Maintain daily and historical backups, understand the restoration process, and take a fresh backup before major changes.
- Respond: Identify the recent change, review the error logs, and restore or correct the affected component. Schedule changes that may interrupt service for an appropriate maintenance window.
Security incidents
A compromised website can put business data and visitors at risk. Some incidents are visible immediately; others require a closer review of files, logs, and website behavior.
- Prepare: Keep daily and historical backups and confirm that your hosting environment includes malware monitoring.
- Respond: Have the incident investigated, restore a known-clean backup when appropriate, and address the cause of the compromise before returning to normal operation.
Build your recovery plan
Review your outage plan while your website is working. Print the website outage checklist and confirm that your team can locate the information it needs. Contact Foxtrot Media if you need help preparing or recovering your website.
