“It's down for me” and “it's actually down” look identical from inside one browser tab — both show an error page. The only way to tell them apart is to check from somewhere else, which is what each of the tools below does in a different way.
The Order That Actually Narrows It Down
- Is My Site Down — fetches the site live from an external server and reports up or down for everyone, not just you. If this comes back reachable, the problem is somewhere between you and the site, not the site itself.
- Ping — confirms the host is reachable at the network level from that same external server. A failed ping alongside a working Is My Site Down result usually just means ICMP is blocked, not a real problem — see the caveat below.
- Traceroute — shows the actual path to the host, hop by hop. Useful when Is My Site Down is inconsistent or slow rather than a clean up/down, since it shows where along the route things are actually degrading.
- DNS Propagation Checker — checks whether major public resolvers agree on the site's DNS record. If they don't, different people are legitimately being sent to different places right now, which explains “it works for them but not me” without anything actually being broken.
Local Causes Worth Ruling Out First
- Stale DNS cache — your device or router cached an old IP before a change. Flushing DNS locally, or simply waiting out the TTL, resolves this.
- Browser cache — an old, broken version of the page is being served from local cache rather than fetched fresh. A hard refresh rules this out.
- VPN or proxy — changes both your DNS resolver and your apparent location, either of which can produce a different result than someone on a direct connection.
- ISP-level block or filter — some networks block specific sites outright, at the DNS or routing level, without any visible error explaining why.
Why a Failed Ping Doesn't Mean the Site Is Down
Ping uses ICMP; websites are served over HTTP/HTTPS. Plenty of servers, load balancers, and CDNs deliberately drop ICMP while leaving port 80/443 fully open — so a timed-out ping next to a perfectly good Is My Site Down result is expected, not a contradiction. Treat Ping as a latency/routing signal once you already know the site is up, not as the up/down check itself.
When It's a Real Outage
If Is My Site Down reports the site unreachable, and a traceroute from the same external server fails at or near the destination (not partway through your own network), the problem is on the site's own infrastructure — nothing left to check from the visitor's side. At that point it's the site owner's DNS, hosting, or origin server that needs attention, not anything local.
Frequently Asked Questions
A site is down for me but everyone says it's up for them. What's actually happening?
Most often it's local: a bad DNS cache entry (yours or your resolver's), a full browser cache holding an old broken page, a VPN or proxy routing you differently, or a block at your ISP/network level. Run Is My Site Down first — if it reports the site reachable from an outside server, the problem is specific to your own path to it, not the site itself.
Why would DNS show different results for me than for someone else?
DNS propagation isn't instant or uniform — different resolvers cache records for different lengths of time (governed by TTL), and a recent change can take time to reach every resolver worldwide. Two people on different ISPs, VPNs, or DNS providers can legitimately see different (both once-correct) answers during that window.
Could my ISP be blocking a site without telling me?
Yes — this happens for legal/regulatory blocks in some countries, and less commonly for security or abuse-related blocks. A traceroute that reaches a normal-looking hop and then stops abruptly, or a DNS lookup that resolves to an unusual local address, both point at ISP-level interference rather than a problem with the site.
Site down for everyone — how is that different to diagnose?
If Is My Site Down and a traceroute from an external server both fail the same way you're seeing, the problem is on the site's own infrastructure — the site's origin server, DNS, or hosting provider — not anything local. At that point there's nothing left to diagnose from the visitor's side; it's the site owner's outage to fix.
Does a VPN affect which version of a site I see?
Yes, in two ways: it changes which DNS resolver answers your lookups (which can matter mid-propagation), and it changes your apparent geographic location, which some sites deliberately serve different content or routing for. Disabling the VPN and re-checking is a quick way to rule this out.
Run Is My Site Down first against any URL, then follow up with Traceroute or the DNS Propagation Checker if the result doesn't match what you're seeing.