Why did Siteimprove report my site as down when the server was running?

As a user, it can be confusing to receive an alert that your site is down when you see no incidents in the server logs.

In some cases, your web server can be running but your website is unreachable from outside networks for short periods of time.

Reasons a website may be reported as down

The following scenarios can make a site temporarily unreachable from outside, even if the server is still running:

• An external network provider performing maintenance (e.g. updating of core switches causing a brief interruption in network connectivity).
• An update of gateway/firewall software.
• Problems with storage or memory on the web-server, meaning the server is running but not answering requests.
• Too many requests being sent to the server. 
• The database receives a connection slowing it down.
• Firewall/Gateways/DMZ errors

If you have any questions regarding this please contact Siteimprove Technical Support.