My website is down: hosting outage, hacked site or maintenance?

If you’re thinking “my website is down—what should I do?”, start by finding out why. Customers are still trying to visit, but instead of your services and contact details, they see an error, a browser warning or a blank screen. Some may turn to a competitor. While the problem is being fixed, give visitors a simple page with your contact details. You can set this up in about half an hour without disrupting your domain's email settings.

My website is down: three common causes

• A hosting outage. Hosting is the service that keeps your website online. If the server goes down, your site becomes unavailable. Email hosted with the same provider often goes down too, and the support team may not be able to tell you when service will return.
• A hacked website or malware. You might see unfamiliar links, unwanted ads or redirects to other websites. Your browser or Google may display a security warning. Your hosting provider may also take an infected site offline.
• Website maintenance. You might be switching to a new website platform, changing the design or dealing with an update that went wrong. The site says it's “under maintenance”, but customers still need to contact you.

In all three cases, the short-term solution is the same: show a temporary contact page at your usual web address until your main site is back.

Website hacked? What to do first

A specialist should handle the cleanup, but there are a few things you can do straight away:

1. Change your passwords. Start with your email and hosting accounts, then change the passwords for your website dashboard (such as WordPress), FTP account (used to transfer files) and database.
2. Contact your hosting provider. They often have malware scanning tools and backups, and they may already know about the problem.
3. Restore a clean backup from before the hack. After restoring it, update your website software and plugins (the add-ons that give your site extra features). Otherwise, the same weakness could let an attacker back in.
4. Don't delete things at random. If you're unsure, leave the cleanup to a specialist and focus on making sure customers can reach you.

Keep the infected site out of public view while it's being cleaned. Harmful pages put visitors and your business's reputation at risk. A temporary page gives customers somewhere safe to go in the meantime.

Step 1: Create a temporary website page

You don't need to rebuild your whole website. A temporary page only needs to answer two questions: “Are you still open for business?” and “How can I contact you?” Include:

• Your business name and a short explanation of what you do.
• A phone number, a way to reach you through a messaging app and an email address.
• A brief message, such as “We're still open for business. Our full website is temporarily unavailable. Please call us to place an order.”

With OAZEE, you can create this page in a few minutes. Describe your business in a couple of sentences, let AI put together a one-page website, check your contact details and publish it. Then connect your domain: My sites → “Website settings” → “Website address” → “Add a domain” → “I already have a domain”. You can connect a custom domain on the Start plan or above; see the pricing page for details. OAZEE will then show you which DNS records to add.

Step 2: Make sure you can access your domain's DNS settings

Here's what the terms mean:

• Domain: your web address, such as yourbusiness.com.
• DNS: the internet's address book. It tells a browser which server to use when someone enters your domain.
• A record: an entry in that address book that points your domain to a server's numerical address, called an IP address.

Find out who manages your domain's DNS records. This might be your hosting provider, your domain registrar (the company you bought the domain from) or a separate service. Try signing in. Even when hosting is down, you may still be able to access the provider's DNS settings. If your registrar manages your DNS, a hosting outage doesn't affect those settings.

If you can't access your DNS settings, you won't be able to point your domain to the temporary page straight away. While you wait for access to return, make your contact details easy to find on the map listings and social media profiles for your business.

Step 3: Point your domain to the temporary page using A records

There are two ways to point a domain to a different server:

• Change the nameservers (NS servers). This gives another service control of all your domain's records. It can take a day or longer and affects everything, including email.
• Change the A record. This updates the entry that tells browsers where your website lives. It's faster, safer and easy to reverse by restoring the old value.

For an outage or maintenance, use the second option.

Save the original values before changing anything. Take a screenshot of the full list of DNS records so you can put everything back later.

Change these website records:

1. Set the A record for @ to 76.76.21.21. The @ stands for your domain without www, such as yourbusiness.com. This IP address points to the servers that run OAZEE websites.
2. If there's an AAAA record for @, note its value, then delete it. This is another type of server address, usually a long string containing colons. Leaving it in place would send some visitors to the old server.
3. Update the record for www. Check the point below before making this change.

Connecting www without disrupting email

OAZEE suggests a CNAME record for www. A CNAME is an alias: it points one name to another. That's usually the best option. However, a CNAME can't exist alongside other DNS records for the same name. If www already has MX or TXT records, perhaps added when your hosting provider set up email, you won't be able to save a CNAME alongside them.

In that case, use an A record for www with the value 76.76.21.21 instead. Your website will load both with and without www, and the existing email records can stay in place.

Leave email records unchanged

Don't change MX records, which direct incoming email, or TXT records, including SPF, which says who is allowed to send email from your domain. Leave autoconfig and autodiscover alone too: they help email apps find their settings. Keeping these records unchanged preserves your existing email setup.

If your hosting provider's mail server is also down, incoming messages don't disappear immediately. Senders' servers queue them and usually retry delivery for several days. Once the hosting service is back, those messages can be delivered.

Step 4: Wait for the DNS change to take effect

DNS settings often say that changes can take “up to 24 hours”. That allows for the worst case. The actual time depends on TTL, the length of time internet providers store a DNS result before checking again. With a TTL of 600 seconds, or 10 minutes, the new address usually starts working within 10–30 minutes.

Changes may take longer if your provider is experiencing an outage. The settings panel might say “Done” while its DNS servers are still returning the old address. If your temporary page isn't loading after half an hour, search for a “DNS lookup” tool, use it to check your domain's records and give the change a little more time.

Protect your Google rankings with a temporary 302 redirect

Your temporary website has one page, but Google has indexed the individual pages of your old site, such as your services, prices and blog posts. If those old addresses return a 404 error, Google takes that to mean “this page is gone”. On OAZEE sites, the 404 page says “This page doesn't exist”. If those errors continue for a long time, Google starts removing the pages from search results, and you may have to work to regain their rankings when the site returns.

To avoid that, OAZEE sets a temporary 302 redirect from all your old page addresses to the home page, where your temporary contact page appears. A 302 means “temporarily moved”. Google keeps the original pages in its index along with their rankings, expecting them to return. Customers who follow a search result to an old page see your contact details instead of an error.

To turn this on, go to your site settings, find the domain section and enable “Temporary page (outage or maintenance)”.

Keep these points in mind:

• 503 is the ideal signal for a temporary outage. It means “temporarily unavailable”. For a short interruption, a 302 redirect to the home page is a practical alternative.
• Never use a 301 redirect for this. A 301 means the move is permanent. It tells Google that the old pages have moved for good, so it will replace them in search results with the home page.
• Don't add noindex. This tells search engines to leave a page out of search results. If your site's maintenance mode adds noindex, it can hide your home page too.
• Reconsider your approach if the outage or maintenance lasts many weeks. Restore the full website from a backup or arrange a permanent move.

For more on how search engines help people find your business, read our guide to getting customers without ads.

Step 5: Switch back when your main website is working

Once your hosting service is back, the hacked site is clean or maintenance is finished:

1. Restore the original DNS values for @ and www. Restore the AAAA record too if you removed it. Use the screenshot you took in step 3, including the original record type for www. Then turn off “Temporary page (outage or maintenance)” in your temporary site's settings.
2. Check your main website on a phone and a computer. Make sure it loads on both.
3. Download a fresh, full backup, including photos and files.
4. Review customer enquiries and emails that came in while your site was down so you can follow up.

Website outage checklist: prepare before you need it

• Make regular, full backups, including photos and files, and store them somewhere separate from your hosting provider.
• Know where your domain's DNS is managed and make sure you can sign in without relying on your hosting service.
• Have a simple contact page ready to go live within minutes.
• Save the original DNS values before every change.
• Use a strong, unique password for each of your hosting, website dashboard and email accounts.

Keep a standby page ready with OAZEE

A temporary page needs to go live quickly and look professional. With OAZEE, you can have a first version ready in a few minutes. Connect your domain using an A record and a separate record for www, while leaving your email records in place. For a walkthrough, read how to create a website with AI.

You can prepare the page in advance and keep it ready for an emergency. Bear in mind that a free site with no visits is archived after 90 days. That makes a paid plan a more reliable choice for a standby page. You can connect your own domain on the Start plan or above.

Create a temporary website page in minutes

Describe your business in a couple of sentences, check your contact details and publish. Connect your domain when you need it.

Create a website for free

Frequently asked questions

My website is down. What should I do first?

If your hosting is down, ask support when service is likely to return and check whether you can access your domain's DNS settings. If you can, create a temporary contact page and point your domain to it using A records. Restore the original values when your main site is back.

What should I do if my website has been hacked?

Change your hosting, website dashboard and email passwords, contact your hosting provider and restore a clean backup made before the hack. While a specialist cleans up the site, show visitors a temporary page with your contact details.

What should a website maintenance page say?

Tell visitors that you're still open for business, briefly explain that the full site is temporarily unavailable and include a phone number. Give them a clear way to contact you straight away. Don't hide the page from search engines with noindex.

How long does a DNS change take when my website is down?

Usually 10–30 minutes with a low TTL, such as 600 seconds. The “up to 24 hours” message allows for delays. During an outage, your provider may take longer to apply the change.

Will pointing my website to a temporary page affect email?

Changing your website's A records for @ and www won't disrupt your email settings if you leave MX and TXT records (including SPF), autoconfig and autodiscover unchanged. If the mail server itself is down, senders' servers usually queue messages and retry delivery for several days.

What's the difference between an A record and nameservers?

An A record points your website to a server. Nameservers control where all your domain's records are managed, including email records. For a temporary outage, changing the A record is faster and safer than changing nameservers.

Is a 503 response or a 302 redirect better during downtime?

A 503 response is the ideal “temporarily unavailable” signal. A short-term 302 redirect from old page addresses to your temporary home page is a practical alternative that keeps the original pages and their rankings in Google. Never use a permanent 301 redirect for a temporary outage.

Will a temporary website page hurt my Google rankings?

A temporary page is unlikely to affect your rankings if it's only up for a few days, especially when old page addresses use a 302 redirect rather than returning 404 errors. In OAZEE, enable “Temporary page (outage or maintenance)” in the domain section of your site settings. Don't use 301 redirects or noindex. If the interruption lasts many weeks, reconsider your approach.