Is your Wix site down? What to check

If your Wix site won't load, start with two quick checks. Open the site on a different device and network, such as your phone on mobile data. Then open status.wix.com, Wix's system status page. Those two steps tell you whether the problem is your own connection, a Wix-wide incident, or something specific to your site.

If the status page shows no incident and the site is down everywhere, the cause is almost always on the account side: the Wix plan has expired, the domain registration has lapsed, the DNS records were changed, or the site was unpublished. All of these are fixable, and your content is not lost. The checks below take about ten minutes.

Step 1: find out who can't see the site

Many "site down" reports turn out to be one browser, one office network or one device. Before changing anything, test from more than one place.

1. Open the site in a private or incognito window.
2. Open it in a second browser.
3. Open it on your phone with Wi-Fi turned off.
4. Ask someone in another location to try.

If it loads anywhere, the site is up and the problem is local. Wix's checklist for this situation asks whether your browser is supported and up to date, and whether you are on a public or institutional network that blocks Wix. School, hospital and corporate networks sometimes filter sites. Wix also notes that an internet provider's block can make a site unreachable in certain countries, which matters if the report came from a customer abroad.

An error that reads ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT points the same way. Wix's advice for it is to check your internet connection.

Step 2: check Wix's status page

status.wix.com is described by Wix as "Real-time health for Wix products and services". It lists current availability and recent incidents for services including accessing a live site, editing or publishing a site, log-in, the user dashboard, media management, Wix Stores, Wix Bookings, Wix Blog and the mobile app.

What to do with it:

• An incident is listed. There is nothing for you to fix. Don't change DNS records or republish in a panic. Subscribe to updates by email or SMS on the status page and wait for Wix to resolve it.
• Nothing is listed. Keep going down this list. Bear in mind the page's own warning: "Some issues affecting a small number of users may not be shown on the status page." If you suspect a platform problem that isn't shown, the page has a "Report a problem with Wix" form.

Your dashboard has a second source. The Uptime and Security page, under Site and Mobile App, shows a 90-day uptime bar for your site and links days with issues to the status page. It also has a global availability test that you can run once every 24 hours. Wix describes these tools in its uptime and security overview.

Step 3: read the error message

The exact wording on the screen narrows things down. Wix's guide to being unable to view your live site starts by asking whether an error code is shown, and names 401, 403, 404, 500 and 502.

If a single page returns a 404 and the rest of the site works, the site isn't down. A page was deleted, unpublished or renamed. A redirect from the old address to the new one fixes it for visitors and for search engines.

Step 4: check that your Wix plan is active

This is the first account-side cause to rule out. A custom domain only stays connected while the site has an active Premium or Studio plan. Wix explains what happens when a plan is canceled or lapses: it stays active until the end of the paid period, and then "your site address reverts to the free Wix URL (siteprefix.wixsite.com/siteaddress) and Wix ads appear on your site".

Two points matter here:

• Your content is not deleted. Pages, images and settings remain in your account. The site still exists at its free Wix address.
• The domain stops showing the site. To anyone typing your domain, that looks like the site being down.

Open your Wix account and check the plan's status. If a renewal payment failed, the plan may have lapsed without anyone noticing, so check the payment method on file too. If the status is expired, Wix says "you must upgrade to a new plan to reconnect your site to your domain." Our comparison of Wix plans can help if you need to choose again, and how to cancel a Wix plan and get a refund explains how cancellation and renewal dates work.

Step 5: check that your domain hasn't expired

A domain is registered for a set period and has to be renewed. If the renewal fails, the domain stops sending visitors to your site even though the site itself is fine. For a domain registered with Wix, Wix's domain life cycle describes three stages after the expiry date:

Some country-code extensions are stricter. Wix lists .at, .be, .ch, .co.at, .com.br, .or.at, .de, .fr, .nl, .me and .mx as having no grace period, and .it as having a 10-day one. If your domain uses one of these, renew before the expiry date, not after.

After you pay for a lapsed domain, Wix says it can take up to 48 hours for the site to be live again. If your domain is registered with another company, that company's rules and fees apply, and Wix directs you to contact that registrar.

One more domain cause is easy to miss. If you never clicked the link in Wix's "Verify domain contact info now to keep your site live" email, the domain is deactivated until you do. In your account, go to Domains, choose Resend Confirmation Email, and confirm. It can take up to 48 hours to return.

Step 6: check the domain connection and DNS

If the plan and the domain are both current, look at whether the domain still leads to Wix. Ask whether anyone has recently changed DNS records, switched email providers, moved the domain to a new registrar or turned on a security feature at the domain host. Any of these can break the connection.

• Confirm the domain is assigned to the right site in your Wix account.
• Confirm the DNS records match what Wix expects for your connection method.
• Allow 48 hours after any change. During that time the site may be unreachable or load on some networks and not others.

The Wix Domain Assistant runs these checks for you, and our article on a Wix domain that isn't connecting covers the records and the usual mistakes.

Step 7: check that the site is published and still exists

Two last possibilities sit inside the account itself.

• The site was unpublished or never published. Visitors to an unpublished site see "Page Not Found". Open the editor and click Publish.
• The site was moved to Trash. If the editor reports "This site was deleted", restore it from Trash in your Wix account.

If more than one person has access, review who can do what. Our Wix security guide covers account protection.

What to do while the site is down

• Don't make several changes at once. If you edit DNS, switch plans and republish in the same hour, you won't know what fixed it, and DNS edits each need time to propagate.
• Record the details. Note the time, the exact error, the address you tried and where you tested from. Wix support will ask.
• Pause paid ads. If you run Google Ads or Meta ads to the site, pause them until it loads again so you aren't paying for clicks to an error page.
• Tell customers where to reach you. A short post on your social profiles or Google Business Profile with a phone number covers the gap.

How to reduce the chance of it happening again

• Keep a current payment card on the Wix account and note the renewal dates for both the plan and the domain in a shared calendar.
• Make sure the account's email address is one that somebody reads, so renewal and verification notices are seen.
• Subscribe to email or SMS alerts on the Wix status page.
• Check the Uptime and Security page once a month.
• Write down where your domain is registered, where its DNS is managed and who has the logins.

Conclusion

A Wix site that won't load is rarely a platform outage. Test from a second network, look at the status page, then work through the plan, the domain renewal, the DNS records and the publish state. In most cases the content is safe and the fix is a renewal or a corrected record, followed by a wait of up to 48 hours. If you'd like someone to keep an eye on renewals, DNS and uptime so this doesn't land on your desk, our website maintenance services team can help. More guides are in our Wix hub.

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