Don't panic — most outages have a simple cause
When a website stops working, the first reaction is panic — especially with an e-shop, where every hour means lost orders. The good news: most outages come down to one of a handful of common causes and can be fixed quickly. This guide takes you from the first check all the way to deciding whether you can handle the situation yourself.
1. Confirm whether the problem is on your end
Before you do anything, find out whether the site is really down for everyone, or just for you. The most common false alarm is your own connection or your browser cache.
Quick steps:
- Open the site in an incognito window (Ctrl+Shift+N) — this rules out the cache.
- Try the site on mobile data instead of Wi-Fi.
- Enter the site's address into a tool like "is it down right now" — it will tell you whether the site is unreachable globally.
If the site loads from elsewhere, the problem is on your end (cache, DNS, connection) and you just need to wait or clear the cache.
2. Read the error message
The error message isn't your enemy — it's a clue. It often lets you guess the cause quickly:
- 500 Internal Server Error — an error on the server or in the code. Typically after a plugin update or a bad edit.
- 502 / 503 / 504 — the server is overloaded or not responding. Often temporary, sometimes a hosting issue.
- "This site can't provide a secure connection" / NET::ERR_CERT — the SSL certificate has expired.
- A white screen — typically a PHP error in WordPress.
- "Database connection error" — the site can't connect to the database.
3. Think about what changed
A website doesn't crash on its own. Almost always, something happened first:
- An update to a plugin, theme, or system (WordPress, a Shoptet module).
- A code change or a settings tweak.
- An expired domain or hosting.
- Someone changed the DNS records.
If you know what changed right before the outage, the cause is often already on a plate in front of you.
4. What you can safely try yourself
Some things you can do without any risk of making the situation worse:
- Clear the cache — both the website cache and the CDN (Cloudflare), if you use one.
- Check your payments — an expired domain or an unpaid hosting invoice are surprisingly common causes. Check your emails from the registrar.
- Restore from a backup — if you have a backup and know how to upload it, rolling back to yesterday's version is the fastest fix.
What NOT to do: don't edit the theme code or the database unless you know exactly what you're doing. For a non-expert, a small outage can easily turn into a big problem.
5. When to call a specialist
Call when:
- The site is mission-critical (e-shop, bookings, leads) and every hour costs money.
- The error message points to the server, the database, or SSL and you don't know where to start.
- The site has been hacked or infected with malware (Google may drop it from the index).
- You've tried the basic steps and nothing helped.
A professional usually identifies the cause within an hour and fixes it before you've found the right YouTube tutorial. With express website help you pay for the hours worked — no retainer, no year-long contract. We pick up the phone outside business hours too, because websites don't only crash at two o'clock on a Tuesday afternoon.
How to prevent outages
The best emergency plan is the one you never have to use. Regular backups, uptime monitoring, and updates run in a staging environment (not straight onto the live site) reduce the risk of an outage to a minimum. That's exactly what monthly website maintenance handles — we often know about the problem before you do and fix it before customers even notice.
Conclusion
When your site goes down, stay calm: confirm the problem isn't on your end, read the error message, recall what changed, and try the safe steps. If you're not sure, or the outage is costing you money, get in touch — diagnostics take under an hour and we often find it was something small.