What to Check If Your Real Estate IDX Website Is Down
It’s a situation no one wants. You go online, type in your url, and find your IDX real estate website won’t load. You click refresh—still nothing.
The first reaction for most is to fire off a panicked email to the web team. But the important thing is to stay calm. There are, actually, a few things you can check to save your team time.
Here is what to check if your real estate IDX website is down.
Is your site down everywhere?
Have you ever announced to a room that a site won’t load only for someone else to reply that it’s loading for them? Pretty annoying right? We’ll this actually provides some information. Web staff can infer from this situation that the problem is local and take appropriate action.
So the first thing you want to check is if your site is down everywhere or just for you. You can do this by trying to load your site in a new browser. If it still does not load, try using the webtool downforeveryoneorjustme.com.
LUKE’S TIP:
Has your hosting account been suspended?
Your hosting plan is essentially a rental agreement for space on a server. Just like a rental agreement for an apartment, if you stop paying, the owner has the right to evict you. Web hosts do this by suspending your account so no one can access your site. So if you find your site is down, you should double check that you are up-to-date on your account payments. In most cases, you’ll know this is the problem because there will be a banner notice over your site informing you of the suspension.
Account payments, however, are not the only reason your account may be suspended. Web hosts have a reputation to uphold. If your site is infected your host may suspend your account to prevent the nefarious code from spreading.
Has your domain name expired?
Just like your hosting, your domain name is essentially a rental, though typically for a longer (i.e. multiyear) period. If your domain name expires, you will no longer be able to access your website by typing in the url. So you’ll want to check on this too.
The good news is that your domain registrar should give you ample warning in advance of your domain expiring. Make sure you provide an email that your actually use, so you don’t miss these alerts.
Is your web host conducting server maintenance?
It is also possible for your website to be affected if your web host is conducting server maintenance. This maintenance can be routine or emergency. Typically, routine maintenance is done during low usage hours (like in the middle of the night). You are also notified well in advance if this work will cause any outages.
Emergency maintenance is conducted urgently with little to no warning. If your site is down and you don’t remember receiving any emails about outages, you should check with your hosting provider. Most have a status page where they provide updates about their systems and how they are functioning. Any work or outages will be mentioned there.
Have you made a change?
Many sites are pulled down simply by user error. This maybe the case if you were recently working on your site and move a file to the wrong location in the directory. It may take a while to identify the problem but remembering at least that you were doing work on the site will help the web staff narrow down the options.
In other cases, the change may not be an error but your site may come down simply because of the time it takes for the change to register. This may be the problem if you notice your site is down after a DNS change. The speed at which DNS servers propagate these changes can vary, and DNS changes can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to update online.
Has your server run out of space?
Finally, your site may experience problems if you have run out of server space. Many IDX websites depend on organic listings. These sites can take up between 50 GBs and 1 TB of disc space, so make sure you have enough.
Now you know what to check if your real estate IDX website is down. For more IDX website tips, check out 13 Signs That Your IDX Website Has Been Hacked and 12 Routine Maintenance Tasks For Your WordPress IDX Website
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