Is it down, or just me? How to tell in under a minute

1. Check it from somewhere else

Put the address into the checker on the home page. It visits the site from our server, which sits on a completely different network from yours, so your Wi-Fi, your router and your browser are out of the picture.

• "It's not down" means the site answered us. The problem is on your side, so keep reading.
• "Yes, it's down" means it's broken for everyone. Skip to when it really is down.
• "That website doesn't exist" almost always means a typo. Read the address one letter at a time. gooogle.com and joshhollday.com look right at a glance.

2. Switch off Wi-Fi on your phone

Turn Wi-Fi off and load the site on mobile data. If it works, your home or office network is the problem. Unplug the router for 30 seconds and plug it back in. That clears more problems than it has any right to.

3. Rule out your browser

Browsers hang on to old copies of pages, and sometimes they hang on to a broken one. Try these in order:

1. Hard refresh: Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on a Mac.
2. Open a private or incognito window. It starts without your saved cookies and most extensions.
3. Try a different browser entirely.

If the private window works, an extension is the likely culprit. Ad blockers and privacy tools break more sites than people expect. Turn them off one at a time until the site comes back.

4. Clear your DNS cache

Your computer remembers which server each website lives on, so it doesn't have to look it up every time. When a site moves to a new server, your computer can keep knocking on the old door for a while. Clearing that memory forces a fresh lookup.

On Windows, open Command Prompt and run:

ipconfig /flushdns

On a Mac, open Terminal and run:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Still stuck? Switch your device's DNS to a public service like Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8). Your internet provider's DNS is sometimes the thing that's broken.

5. Check for a VPN or a filtered network

A VPN routes your traffic through another country, and some sites block VPN addresses or whole regions. Turn it off and try again. Work and school networks often block categories of sites on purpose, so a site that's fine at home can be unreachable at the office. Our guide on using a VPN when a site is blocked covers the reverse case.

When it really is down

There's nothing you can fix on someone else's server, so the useful moves are about information:

• Look for a status page. Many companies run one at status. plus their domain, like status.openai.com, or a separate site like githubstatus.com.
• Check the company's account on X, Bluesky or Mastodon. Outages usually get a post within 15 to 30 minutes.
• Read the error. A 503 often means planned maintenance, while a 502 or 504 usually clears in minutes. The status codes guide explains each one.
• Wait 10 minutes and check again. Most outages are short.

Cheat sheet