Help! My Website is Down! How Do I Get It Back?

What would you do if your website suddenly disappeared into thin air? Would you panic? Get a sick feeling in your stomach? Or get angry?

Sadly, the first sign of trouble may indeed be your site going down (disappearing). It happens occasionally, and while it could be temporary due to hosting issues, it could be permanent.

Some reasons for your site going down are your:

• Hosting company may be doing maintenance, in which case your site will be back online momentarily
• Domain name or hosting services might not have been paid for (whose responsibility is that, yours or your web designer?)
• Site might have been hacked
• Hosting company might have gone out of business
• Domain name registrar might have gone out of business

Has Your Site Disappeared From the Web?

We can help! Contact us right away and our Rescue Service will get you back up and running as quickly as possible. But before you panic, let’s delve into it a bit.

1. First, let’s see if your site is actually down.  Check other sites to see if it is the Internet connection or just your site. If your internet is working, visit www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ to determine if it’s just you.
2. Has your domain name expired? Has your hosting expired? You can find this information by signing into your host.
3. Do you own your domain name or does your web designer? Have any login information, PIN numbers, etc ready – we’ll probably be needing them.

We Can Help . . .
Contact Us

In most cases, we can resolve your issues in less time
so you can spend more time doing what you do best … run your business.

Want To Take Proactive Steps to Ensure This Doesn’t Happen to You?

Taking a few proactive steps can, at the very least, make it easier to get you back up and running quickly. To protect yourself, you need to know some very important things.

Where is my domain name registered?

Did you buy your domain name or did your web designer? You should have a record of the username and password.

If your web designer bought the domain name, did they pass that information on to you? It may not seem important, but if your web designer disappears, how will you retrieve that information?

Registrars are ICANN-accredited companies who directly register domain names, so your domain name will be safer if registered through an established registrar. Resellers are companies who register domain names on behalf of these registrars.

Well-established domain registrars, such as GoDaddy and Namecheap, are less likely to go under than are resellers.

Who is the owner of my domain?

Check in the Whois (whois.com or betterwhois.com) directory to see who is listed. There are three contacts listed in the Whois directory: an administrative contact, a technical contact and a billing contact.

I recommend that you list:

1. Yourself as the administrative contact so that you have access to your account.
2. Your web designer/web master as the technical contact so he/she can discuss the technical issues of your site with the hosting company.
3. Yourself as the billing contact so you are notified of billing due dates. This gives you control and can prevent your site going down due to an unpaid bill.

Where is my website hosted?

Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server which is owned or leased to clients. It is where your site actually lives, whereas the domain name is the address.

There are thousands of hosting companies out there. Your web host is most often determined by your web designer unless you specify the host you want to use. A reputable web designer will only use hosting companies with a good track record. I recommend Siteground.

Your domain name and hosting do not have to be with the same company. In fact, if you have any sort of dispute with your web host, they have the ability to hold your site hostage. But if the domain name is registered at one company and the site is hosted at another, all you have to do to get your site back up and running is arrange hosting with another company, go back to the domain registrar and point the domain to the new host, and voila! your site is back on the web. Then you can work out your differences with the previous host while your site remains accessible and functioning.

Why should I backup my site?

I can’t stress enough the importance of backing up your site (the more often you make changes, the more frequently it should be backed up). If it does go belly up and you have a backup … an off-site backup … you can be up and running in no time with minimum hassle.

Hosting companies offer backups on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. But if the hosting company goes out of business, your backup would go with it. So make sure you have other backups and store them off site.

Proactive Steps to Reduce Your Risk

1. Stay connected with your web designer (I have been there to help many clients work through issues)
2. Make sure registration details are in your name (there are a lot of hoops to jump through if they aren’t)
3. Keep usernames and passwords accessible
4. Backup your site and store it in an offsite location (I recommend Backup Buddy and Amazon S3)

We offer a
Peace of Mind Package

It includes regular backups that are stored on AmazonS3.
If your site should go down for some unforeseen reason,
we could have your site up and running in short order.