Check if a website is down or online right now

Website status checker: what "up," "down" and "slow" mean

When Website Worth Up or Down checks a website, it makes a real connection to that site's server at that exact moment, the same way your browser would, and records exactly what comes back. That result falls into one of three categories:

• Up — our server connected successfully and the site's own server responded without a serious error (anything below an HTTP 500-level response).
• Down — either our server couldn't establish a connection at all (the request timed out, the connection was refused, or the domain didn't resolve), or the site's own server returned an error response (HTTP 500 or higher).
• Slow — the site responded and is technically up, but took noticeably longer than typical to answer. This still counts as "up" in the headline status, but the response-time figure and load timing breakdown on each site's report page make it visible.

How response time is measured

We send a lightweight HEAD request first, since it's the cheapest way to confirm a server is responding. If a server rejects HEAD requests outright (some do), we fall back to a full GET request instead. The response time shown is the time between sending that request and receiving the first response headers back — not a full page load with images, scripts and fonts, which is why our number can differ from what you see in a browser's own network tab.

Why a website might show as down for us but work fine for you (or the other way around)

A website being unreachable from our servers and a website being unreachable from your device are two different things, and they don't always agree. Common reasons for the mismatch:

• Server-side problems affect everyone the same way: the site's hosting, database, or application crashed or is overloaded. If we show a site as down and you also can't load it, this is almost always the cause.
• Local connection problems only affect you: a stale DNS cache, a browser extension, a company or school firewall blocking the site, an ISP-level block, or a problem with your own network. If we show a site as up but you still can't load it, start here.
• Some sites deliberately block automated requests (including ours) while serving real visitors normally, which can make an otherwise-healthy site look down in an automated check.
• Geographic routing means a site can genuinely respond faster or slower, or even fail, from one region's network path and not another's — our result reflects our servers' location, not necessarily yours.

How often sites are checked

Individual lookups (typing in any domain) run a fresh, live check the moment you ask, every time. Separately, the top tracked sites shown on the homepage are re-checked automatically every couple of minutes, and an outage alert is raised the instant one of the top 50 stops responding — so the "Having problems" list reflects near real-time status, not a stale snapshot.

What HTTP status codes mean

Every response includes a three-digit HTTP status code. Broadly:

• 2xx (e.g. 200 OK) — success. The request worked and the server returned the expected content.
• 3xx (e.g. 301, 302) — redirect. The site is pointing the request somewhere else, such as from a bare domain to its www version, or from HTTP to HTTPS.
• 4xx (e.g. 403, 404) — client error. The request itself was rejected or the specific page wasn't found — the server is generally still up.
• 5xx (e.g. 500, 502, 503) — server error. The site's own infrastructure failed to handle the request, which is what we count as "down."

Each individual site report shows the exact status code returned, along with the full chain of redirects and response headers, if any, under the collapsible detail tabs.