# Source: src/lib/business/blog-articles.tsx → articles[is-my-website-down-right-now]. Keep in sync.

# Is my site down right now? The 60-second diagnostic, in plain terms.

> A six-step ladder a small shop owner can run in under sixty seconds to find out whether the site is really down, what is failing, and what to do next.

URL: /blog/is-my-website-down-right-now
Canonical page: /blog/is-my-website-down-right-now
Site index: /llms.txt
Blog index: /blog
Author: SiteGuardian founder
Published: 2026-07-06
Updated: 2026-07-10
Keyword: is my website down right now
Tags: is my website down right now

## TL;DR
- A six-step ladder a small shop owner can run in under sixty seconds to find out whether the site is really down, what is failing, and what to do next.

## Key takeaways
- Q: What is the 60-second diagnostic ladder?
  A: Six checks, each ten seconds, in order. Load the home page in a private window. Paste it into a free external uptime check. Run a TLS checker. Open the host status page. Check public DNS for one critical edge host. Look at the registrar. The order is the point — the first four settle most cases within thirty seconds, the last two are the long tail.
- Q: Why load the page in a private window first?
  A: A private window bypasses your cache and your DNS cache. If the home page is up, the issue is on your end and almost certainly cache-related. The first five minutes of a possible outage are the worst five minutes; the ladder gets you in front of the right human before ten minutes pass.
- Q: When is the host status page not enough?
  A: When the registrar has placed the domain on clientHold because the WHOIS contact email expired. That shape of failure is invisible to a host-only status page. If the host says nothing is wrong and the registrar has a hold on the domain, the registrar is the layer to read next.
- Q: What does the ladder not fix?
  A: It diagnoses. It does not restore. When the ladder tells you the host is the layer that failed, the restore path belongs to the host’s on-call. When the ladder tells you the cert chain is the failed layer, the restore path belongs to whoever manages the cert renewal. The ladder’s job is to put you in front of the right human.
- Q: What does the ladder do once, ongoing?
  A: Once you have the ladder, the next question is which parts of it you want done for you on a schedule. Probing every minute from outside, with one loud email per outage, is the boring substitute for the second half of the ladder. It does not check DNS or WHOIS for you; the host status page and the registrar still belong to a human.

## What this article is
- The article opens by naming the worst five minutes of a possible outage — and then lays out a six-step ladder that fits in sixty seconds and walks the operator from "is it really down" to "which human owns this layer."
- Each step is ten seconds: private window, external uptime check, TLS checker, host status page, DNS resolve, registrar. The first four settle the typical case in thirty seconds; the last two are the long tail.
- The article closes by naming the part of the ladder a shop can replace with a monitor (the external probe) and the part that stays human (DNS, WHOIS, registrar escalation).

## Take action
- Run the 60-second diagnostic on your own site.: Run the free audit → /audit.
- See plans & pricing → /pricing.
- Compare with UptimeRobot → /vs/uptime-robot.

## Related reading
- What downtime actually costs a small business → /blog/website-downtime-cost-small-business.
- Website monitoring for small businesses → /blog/website-monitoring-for-small-businesses.
- How to keep your small business website up → /blog/how-to-keep-your-small-business-website-up.
- Monitoring SSL certificate expiry for small business → /blog/monitoring-ssl-certificate-expiry-small-business.
- /blog
- /llms.txt

## Site context
- SiteGuardian is one paid product: a $299 Lifetime deal, plus Starter $19/mo and Pro $39/mo. The full inventory is at /llms.txt.