There are many aspects of your site that need to be functioning correctly for your site to load correctly. Anything from your domain registration to your local internet connection can stop a page from loading.
If you check your website and find that it is not loading, there could be many reasons for this. Here are some things that you can check to see what may be wrong with your website or domain.
Sections
- General Checks
- Domain Registration
- Domain Suspended
- Nameserver issues
- DNS records
- Website software
- Network Issues
General Checks
Here are a few quick checks you can do to see if your site is down because of your domain or because of a server issue.
Try accessing your cPanel
If you website is hosted on one of our cPanel servers, then you should be able to access the cPanel login page. Try accessing the cPanel login page using your domain url:
example.com/cpanel example.com:2083
If you are able to access cPanel using either of these URLs, where you replaced example.com with your domain, then you know that the domain is functioning. If you are not able to access the cPanel, you may have a name server/DNS issue.
Check your email
If your site does not load, but your email is still working, then you know that the issue is not domain related. If your mail is also down, then you should focus on DNS first.
Try another device
If you cannot load your site on your computer, you should try to access your site on your iPhone or iPad. If the site still does not load, try it again with you WiFi turned off. If you iPhone or iPad is connecting through the same router (which is common), both will be using the same ip address. Switching you iPhone to mobile data will force it to use a different IP address. If the site loads on the mobil device, then the issue is most likely an IP block. Contact support to fix.
Check online propagation sites
There are many online tools that you can use to check what your domain is set up correctly and functioning correctly. If you search for "DNS checker, you will find several tools that you can use to check if your domain DNS is propagating. One we use here is DNS CHecker.
Domain Registration
The first thing that you should check is your domain registration. Your domain needs to be renewed every year, although this process is typically automatic (including with MacHighway). However, if there was an issue with your payment information, maybe the card on file expired, it is possible that your domain did not renew. If this was the case, you should receive several emails letting you know that there was an issue.
How to check
If you use your domain for email as well, then the easiest way to check is to try sending or receiving an email. If your site is down but your email is working, then you know you do not have a domain issue.
If your email is down as well, or if you do not use email with your domain, you can check your domain status using a WhoIs Lookup tool. There are many online tools that you can use to do this. What you want to do is to search for "WhoIs lookup". A WhoIs lookup will show you the current status of your domain. Look for the domain status:
[) Domain Info for example.com
[) Registrar Info
Registrar: RESERVED-Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
Registrar IANA ID: 376
Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 2023-05-12T15:13:35Z
Creation Date: 1995-08-14T04:00:00Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2023-08-13T04:00:00Z
If the status states renew, expired or redemption, you have a registration issue.
How to correct
If your domain is expired, check your MacHighway client area for an unpaid invoice. If the invoice is present and not too much time has past, processing the payment should correct the issue. Otherwise, submit a ticket and our team will check for you.
If the domain is in redemption, you will need to contact support to renew you domain. The domain will be recoverable, but there will be an additional fee required.
Domain Suspended
If your account is not secured properly, it may become infected with spam and phishing malware. If your website gets flagged as a spam or phishing site, it is possible that the domain registrar will suspend your domain. When your domain is suspended, none of your domain based services (website, email) will not work.
How to check
You would check this the same way as above. Check to see if your email is working or preform a WhoIs lookup. It is possible that your domain status will show as suspended, or your nameservers will be changed. Typically the placeholder nameservers will have "suspended" in the name.
How to correct
Contact our support staff and we will see what needs to be done to correct the site issues and unsuspend the domain. This may take a few days to complete.
Nameserver issues
After your domain registration, the next point of failure is your domain nameservers. Your nameservers contain the DNS records that are needed to direct internet traffic (websites and email) to the correct servers. Without proper nameservers, requests will never reach your server.
Your nameservers are managed by your domain register. If you need to update your nameservers, you will need to contact them. If your domain is registered with us, you can update your name servers from your MacHighway client area.
[Name Servers]
How to check
When preforming a WhoIs lookup, the lookup should return your current nameservers. If you are using MacHighway for your DNS hosting, then your nameservers should be the following:
ns1.machighway.com
ns2.machighway.com
If you use another service for your DNS, then your nameservers will be different. If you notice "parking" or "suspended" in the nameservers, then you most likely have a domain registration issue.
How tho correct
The easiest fix is to ensure you are using our name servers. Even if you are not using all of our services, if you are using our nameservers, we can more easily assist you to get your services up and running. If you are not using our nameservers, we can usually figure out the issue, but it will be up to you to correct the issues.
If you find you may have an issue with your domain registration, you will need to contact the domain registrar.
DNS records
While the name servers contain the Zone File that describes the DNS records, it is the the DNS records that actually direct traffic to your web hosting server. Long story short, the DNS record converts a website name (Google.com) to an IP address (142.250.179.142), that is needed for traffic routing.
How to check
As with the domain status, there are many online tools that you can use to check your DNS records. However, your best method is to log into your DNS host interface. If you are using our cPanel services, this would be cPanel. You can manage your DNS records in the Zone Editor.
[Zone Editor]
How to correct
You can correct any DNS record issues in your DNS management interface as mentioned above. If you are using the MacHighway name servers, this would be the Zone Editor in your cPanel. If you need help updating these records, or are not sure what the records should be, please contact our support team.
If you are not using our name servers, you will need to contact your DNS host.
Website software
If your domain, name servers and DNS are all in order, then all website traffic for your domain should be getting to your hosting server. If your site is not loading still, then it is most like that you have a software issue. A software issue can be either on the server side or the software used to build your website.
How to check
The easiest way to check to see if you have a software issue with your site is to check to see if a basic site will load. This may sound difficult, but it is easier than you may think. By default, a browser will attempt to load a file named index.html, but most website software will direct the browser to load a different file name, such as index.php. However, you can enter a file name in the address bar to see if it loads.
What you can do is access your cPanel file manager and create a new file, for example, test.html. Edit the new file and enter any text into the file, such as "Hello World" and save.
Now, open your browser and enter your domain into the address bar, followed by /test.html.
example.com/test.html
If your web hosting is functioning correctly, you should see a white screen with the words "Hello World" in the upper right corner. If you see this text, then you know that the web server is working correctly. You can now turn your attention to your web site software.
How to correct
Unfortunately, there is little we can do to help you with software issues. If you are using a CMS (WordPress, Joomla, etc.) to manage your site, your first step should be to ensure your software and any plugins or addons are up to date. If this does not help, you should contact the support team of the CMS, or check out their online support. Most popular software vendors have large online communities that can be very helpful when you are having issues.
If you had someone build your site for you, you will need to contact them.
Network Issues
Lastly, if you cannot access your website, it could be a network or IP issue that is only affecting the device you are checking with. This could be due to Firewalls (most business networks will have firewalls that may block access to unauthorized sites), or it could be that your IP was blocked by our servers.
IP blocks
If our server receives several failed log in attempts from an IP in a short time, the server will block the IP temporarily. This is because the server sees this activity as a potential brute force attack, and blocks the IP to protect itself.
This includes any failed mail client log in attempts (iPhone, MacMail, etc.). If your email account is not set up correctly on your device, it can be flooding the server with failed attempts. When the server sees this, it blocks your IP address. Where your email and website are on the same server, this will cause your site to not load either. This will only affect your IP, the site will load fine for everyone else.
If your IP is blocked, or you suspect it may be, please contact our support team.
How to check
There are a few methods to check if your site is down for everyone or just for you. The obvious way is to call a friend and ask them to check. If it loads for them, then you know there is an issue on your end.
If you have your iPhone available, you can try to view your site on your iPhone with the wifi off. If you are using wifi, your external IP on your phone would be the same as your computer. Turning the wifi off on your phone will force it to use your mobile data connection, which would have a different IP then your local network.
There are also many online tools that you can use to check if your site is loading in other locations. One that we use is GeoPeeker. This site will show what your site looks like in different locations around the globe.
Another good tool is the website downforeveryoneorjustme.com. This will check your website from a location other then your own.
How to correct
If you suspect that your IP address is being blocked by our servers, you can contact our support team. They can check if your IP is blocked and unblock it if necessary.
If your site is not loading in multiple locations, then your web site software is most likely the issue. Contact whoever you had create your website. Or, if you created it yourself, check your software and ensure that it is up to date and working correctly.
If you determine that you are getting blocked by a network firewall, you will need to contact the administrator of the network to allow you domain.
Still Having Issues?
If you are still having issues, you can contact our Customer Support in the following methods:
Live Chat
You can connect to our Live Chat Support Team from your MacHighway Client Area. If you are not sure how to do this, you can find a guide here.
Our Live Chat team is available Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
Support Ticket
You can submit a support ticket to our Support Team from your client area.
Our ticket Support Team is available 24/7/365.
Phone support
You can contact our Phone Support Team using the following number:
- US/Canada 1-888-974-0334
- International 1-727-800-3606
Our Phone Support team is available Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time.
