Common reasons for a site to be inaccessible
Table of Contents
There are various problems that may prevent you from accessing your site. We will address those cases in which you are not able to access your website but there is no error message indicating the exact problem.
Common reasons for not being able to access your site are:
- Incorrect DNS settings.
- Domain name has expired.
- Blank or no index file.
- Network connectivity issues.
Incorrect DNS Settings
For your web hosting account to be fully functional, your domain’s DNS records should be set to those for the server hosting your account.
Find the correct DNS servers for your domain in your Client Area > Websites. You should do any of the following:
- Set an A record for your domain. The A record should point to the server’s main IP address.
- CNAME (Optional). You might want to set up a CNAME for your www. record to point directly to your domain and thus both www.yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com will be displaying one and the same content.
Note that you should also add a separate A / CNAME record for each subdomain you have.
The domain name has expired
Domain names are registered only for a limited (pre-paid) period of time. If your domain has expired there will be a default site with a link for more information. If this is the case, renew your domain as soon as possible.
If the domain name is registered through SiteGround, you can log into your Client Area and click on the renew button next to the domain in question. Otherwise, you need to get in touch with your domain registrar and renew the domain name with them.
Blank or no index file
When loading your site our web server tries to open any of the following files first: index.html, index.htm, index.php (this is the default order unless specified otherwise in .htaccess file). If there are no such files, the web server displays a list of all your files and directories.
If the index file is empty, your browser will just display a blank page. A blank page may also show if there are problems with a PHP script and the error reporting has been disabled in your script.
Network Connectivity Issues
It is also possible that you are experiencing network connectivity issues to the server you are hosted on. This means you are able to visit other web sites but that particular server is unreachable for you.
SiteGround customers can report such problems for their websites by contacting our Support Team.
If you are not a SiteGround customer, contact your host and ask for further assistance.