What people call their website is four or five separate services: a domain, DNS, a hosting server, the site's own code, and often a separate mail service. Any one can fail while the others are fine, and the symptoms look similar from the outside. Five minutes of checks identifies which layer failed, which determines who can actually fix it.
The layers, from the outside in
| Layer | What failure looks like | Who resolves it |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Nothing resolves at all, often with a registrar parking page | Your registrar |
| DNS | Site unreachable, or reaching the wrong place. Email may fail separately | Whoever holds the nameservers |
| Server | Timeouts, or a host error page. Everything on the account affected | Your host |
| Certificate | A full-page browser security warning | Host or whoever manages certificates |
| The site itself | A server error or a broken page, but the server responds | Your developer or maintenance provider |
| Mail service | Website fine, email not arriving or not sending | Whoever handles mail, often not the host |
The five-minute triage
- Check from a phone on mobile data, with wifi off. Local caching and DNS can show you a working copy of a site nobody else can reach, so checking from your own network first is the most common way to reach a wrong conclusion.
- Note the exact symptom. A browser saying the site cannot be found is a different failure from an error page produced by a server. The first is domain or DNS, the second means the server answered.
- Try a page you know exists and the homepage. One page failing while others work is the site's code, not the infrastructure.
- Send yourself an email to and from the business address. Mail working while the site is down localises the problem immediately.
- Check your host's status page, which resolves it in seconds when the answer is a wider outage.
What the symptom tells you
Cannot be found, or a registrar page
The domain or its DNS. First question is whether the domain is still registered, because an expired domain looks exactly like this and is entirely preventable. Second is whether nameservers or records changed recently.
A security warning filling the screen
The certificate, almost always expiry or a chain problem. The site is otherwise fine and every visitor is being turned away, which makes it urgent.
An error page from the server
The server answered, so the domain and DNS are working. This is either the site's code or the account's resources, and the error log names which.
Very slow, or intermittent
Usually resources, either yours or a neighbouring account on shared hosting. It clusters at busy times, which is the tell.
Site fine, email not arriving
Mail is a separate service pointed by separate records. Nothing about the website being fine implies anything about mail, and this catches people out constantly.
The question that saves the most time
What changed in the last twenty-four hours.
Almost every failure follows a change: an update, an edit, a plugin, a DNS adjustment, an expired card, a migration. Asking this before investigating anything narrows it faster than any diagnostic, and the answer is frequently something someone else did without mentioning it.
The document that makes this easy
Most of the delay in these situations is not diagnosis. It is working out who holds what while the site is down.
One page listing the registrar and who can log in, where the nameservers point, the host and the account, who handles mail, and who maintains the site turns a frantic afternoon into three phone calls. It is the same record described in what you should receive at the end of a project, and its value is entirely realised on days like this.
Why this keeps happening
Because responsibility is genuinely split. The registrar will correctly say the domain is fine. The host will correctly say the server is fine. The developer will correctly say the code is fine. Each is right about their layer, and nobody owns the whole thing.
That is the actual argument for having one provider responsible across domain, DNS, hosting, certificates, and the site itself. Not that any individual layer is better, but that when something breaks there is one number to call and no interval spent establishing whose problem it is.
Frequently asked questions
How do I tell if my website or my host is the problem?
Note the exact symptom. A browser saying the site cannot be found points at the domain or DNS. An error page produced by a server means the server answered, so the problem is the site's code or the account's resources.
Why does my site work for me but not for others?
Local caching and DNS can serve you a working copy of a site nobody else can reach. Always check from a phone on mobile data with wifi off before concluding anything.
My website is up but email has stopped. Why?
Mail is a separate service directed by separate records. The website working implies nothing about mail, and the two are frequently handled by different companies entirely.
What is the first thing to check when a site goes down?
What changed in the last twenty-four hours. Almost every failure follows an update, an edit, a DNS change, an expired payment, or a migration, and the answer narrows it faster than any diagnostic.
Who do I call when my website is down?
It depends which layer failed: the registrar for domain problems, whoever holds the nameservers for DNS, the host for server issues, and your developer for the site's own code.
Why does nobody take responsibility when something breaks?
Because responsibility is genuinely split across several providers, each correctly reporting that their layer is fine. That interval is the argument for having one provider accountable across all of them.
West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.
Tired of being passed between your host, registrar, and developer?
We hold the domain, DNS, hosting, certificates, and the site itself, so when something breaks there is one number and no argument about whose problem it is.
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