Check one HTTP(S) URL or at most ten URLs using the existing HEAD request. Timing describes that request; it is not a continuous uptime monitor.
Method, limits and data
HEAD 405 means this method is unsupported; GET was not checked. Redirect destinations are not followed. Refusals, failed transports and rate limits do not prove a site is down for everyone. Examples and reference text are illustrative, not current measurements or guarantees of availability, precision or logging practices.
URLs are sent to this site for checking. No persistent page history is added. Bulk calls retain 300 ms spacing and stop on rate limit; CSV, TSV and share links can contain your URLs.
How to use
- Enter one URL or one URL per line in bulk mode.
- Review codes and errors, then copy the table, export CSV or share the exact list.
A shared list containing https://example.com/a,b keeps the comma in the path as part of one URL. A measured 0 ms remains 0.
Why does my browser load a URL that this check rejects?
Different methods, access rules, DNS and network paths can give different results. Review the HTTP code and method limitation.
Invalid or empty input clears the previous answer. A timeout or refusal is a failed observation, not a zero measurement or proof of absence. Changing input discards late answers; retry only when ready.
Reference texts, snapshot 27 October 2026; not a live service check.
Website Status Checker
Check one HTTP(S) URL or at most ten URLs using the existing HEAD request. Timing describes that request; it is not a continuous uptime monitor. Treat this server’s single HEAD response or failure as a limited observation. Differences from a browser can involve method, geography, DNS, TLS, caches or filtering; they do not locate a fault or prove a universal outage.
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HTTP status codes and what this checker reports
| Code | Reason phrase | Verdict here | What it means for your check |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200 | OK | Up | A successful HEAD response was observed; full page and browser behavior remain unchecked. |
| 301 | Moved Permanently | Redirect response; destination not checked | Permanent redirect. This tool does not follow it, so you see 301 plus the Location header. |
| 302 | Found | Redirect response; destination not checked | Temporary redirect, often to a maintenance, login or geo-routing page. |
| 304 | Not Modified | Redirect response; destination not checked | A cached copy is still valid. Only returned when the request carries validators. |
| 403 | Forbidden | Down | The server answered, so the host is reachable and this is not an outage. A WAF, bot filter or IP allowlist refused this client; the verdict still reads Down because 403 is a 4xx code. |
| 404 | Not Found | Down | The host answered, so it is reachable — only the path you asked for is missing. Test the bare domain next. |
| 429 | Too Many Requests | Down | Rate limiting: too many requests in a short time. If the response carries a Retry-After header, wait until the moment it names — either a number of seconds or an HTTP date — before retesting. |
| 500 | Internal Server Error | Down | The application crashed on the origin. Read the origin error log. |
| 502 | Bad Gateway | Down | A proxy or CDN could not reach the origin, often mid-deploy. |
| 503 | Service Unavailable | Down | Overload or planned maintenance. Temporary by definition; check Retry-After. |
| 504 | Gateway Timeout | Down | The origin took longer to answer than the proxy was willing to wait. |
| 0 | No response | Down | No completed HTTP response was observed. DNS, TLS, connection, filtering or timeout conditions may be involved; no single cause is established. |
Status classes describe this HEAD observation. A redirect leaves its destination unchecked; HEAD 405 leaves GET unchecked. No response or a refusal does not prove a universal outage.
Is the website down or is it just me?
Treat this server’s single HEAD response or failure as a limited observation. Differences from a browser can involve method, geography, DNS, TLS, caches or filtering; they do not locate a fault or prove a universal outage.
Why do websites go down?
Most outages fall into six families, and the status code tells you which one you are looking at:
- Expired or mismatched TLS certificate — the connection fails before HTTP starts, so you see status 0.
- DNS records changed or expired: the hostname no longer resolves, again status 0.
- The application process crashed or ran out of memory — 500 from the origin, 502 from the proxy in front of it.
- Traffic beyond capacity, or a deliberate maintenance window — 503, usually with Retry-After.
- A slow database or cold start that overruns the proxy timeout — 504.
- A provider incident at a CDN, cloud region or registrar, which can take thousands of unrelated sites down at once.
What should I do if my website is down?
Work from the outside in, in this order:
- Run the check here to confirm the failure is not local to your network.
- Treat this server’s single HEAD response or failure as a limited observation. Differences from a browser can involve method, geography, DNS, TLS, caches or filtering; they do not locate a fault or prove a universal outage.
- Open the Response Headers list — Server, Location and Retry-After name the layer that answered you.
- Check your hosting provider and CDN status pages before you open a support ticket.
- Re-run the check after each change and export the CSV so the incident ticket carries timestamps instead of screenshots.
How fast should a website respond?
The response time shown is the round trip our server needed for a single HEAD request: DNS lookup, TCP connect, TLS handshake and the server's first answer. It excludes images, CSS, JavaScript and rendering, so it is far lower than a Lighthouse page-load figure. The colour bands used on this page are:
| Response time | Colour | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| < 500 ms | Green | Healthy. Typical for a CDN edge or a warm cache. |
| 500–1500 ms | Yellow | Acceptable but worth watching: usually an origin round trip with no edge cache. |
| > 1500 ms | Red | Slow. Check origin CPU, database queries, cold starts and cross-continent routing. |
About Website Status Checker
Check one HTTP(S) URL or at most ten URLs using the existing HEAD request. Timing describes that request; it is not a continuous uptime monitor.
Treat this server’s single HEAD response or failure as a limited observation. Differences from a browser can involve method, geography, DNS, TLS, caches or filtering; they do not locate a fault or prove a universal outage.
HEAD 405 means this method is unsupported; GET was not checked. Redirect destinations are not followed. Refusals, failed transports and rate limits do not prove a site is down for everyone.
URLs are sent to this site for checking. No persistent page history is added. Bulk calls retain 300 ms spacing and stop on rate limit; CSV, TSV and share links can contain your URLs.
A shared list containing https://example.com/a,b keeps the comma in the path as part of one URL. A measured 0 ms remains 0.
Use Cases
How to check whether a website is down
Enter one URL or one URL per line in bulk mode.
Review codes and errors, then copy the table, export CSV or share the exact list.
Read the four tiles: Status Code, Response Time, Content Type and Server. Response times under 500 ms show green, above 1500 ms red.
Open the Response Headers list to see everything the origin sent, including Location on a 301 and Retry-After on a 429 or 503.
Switch to Bulk Check to paste up to 10 URLs, one per line, then use Download CSV or Copy as table to keep the run.
Use Copy shareable link to send a URL that re-runs the identical check when a colleague opens it.
Pro Tips
- Treat this server’s single HEAD response or failure as a limited observation. Differences from a browser can involve method, geography, DNS, TLS, caches or filtering; they do not locate a fault or prove a universal outage.
- Status 0 is not a 500. It means nothing answered at all, so check DNS resolution and TLS certificate expiry before you blame the application.
- Response times under 500 ms show green, 500–1500 ms yellow and slower than 1500 ms red. The figure is server round trip only — no images, CSS or JavaScript.
- If you get 403 from here but the site loads in your browser, a WAF is filtering datacenter IPs or our FreeWebTools Status Checker/1.0 user agent. That is not an outage.
- Bulk mode is capped at 10 URLs and the API allows 60 checks per minute per IP. Split longer lists into batches instead of retrying into a 429.
Troubleshooting
The check returns status code 0 and no headers.
Nothing answered. The hostname may not resolve, the connection may have been refused, the TLS certificate may be expired or issued for a different name, or the request may have run out of time — 8 seconds to connect, 15 seconds in total. Verify DNS and the certificate first, then try the http:// version to isolate a TLS fault.
We report 403 Forbidden but the site loads fine in a browser.
A WAF or bot-protection rule is blocking datacenter IPs or the FreeWebTools Status Checker/1.0 user agent. The site is up; it is refusing automated clients. Allowlist the check or confirm from a residential connection.
Bulk mode stops halfway with a rate-limit message.
The API allows 60 checks per minute per IP address. Wait sixty seconds and re-run the remaining URLs, or split the list into smaller batches. The run already spaces its requests 300 ms apart.
A page that works in the browser reports 404 here.
You are probably testing a path that does not exist on that host, or the domain resolves to a default virtual host. Test the bare domain first and add the path once the root answers 200.
Frequently Asked Questions
Enter a public HTTP(S) URL and submit. The server sends one HEAD request and reports the supplied status and measured time. Redirects are not followed; HEAD 405 does not establish how GET would behave. A failed observation does not prove a universal outage.
Compare this server observation with your browser. Differences may involve DNS, caches, geography, filtering or the requested method; one result alone cannot locate the fault.
503 Service Unavailable means the server is reachable but is refusing to serve the request right now, usually because of overload or planned maintenance. It is temporary by definition and often carries a Retry-After header saying when to come back. Search engines treat a short 503 as "come back later" rather than as a permanent failure.
In practice: expired or mismatched TLS certificates and broken DNS records (both show as status 0), an application that crashed or ran out of memory (500), a proxy that cannot reach the origin mid-deploy (502), traffic beyond capacity or maintenance (503), a database slower than the proxy timeout (504), and provider-wide CDN or cloud incidents.
Treat the code or timeout as a diagnostic clue. Compare a browser GET, the origin logs and the provider status page before deciding what failed.
Yes. Switch to the Bulk Check tab and paste up to 10 URLs, one per line. They are checked in turn with a 300 ms gap between requests, and the results appear as a list with verdict, status code and response time. You can then download the whole run as CSV or copy it as a tab-separated table.
No, and that is deliberate. Redirects are left unfollowed so a 301 or 302 is reported exactly as the server sent it, together with its Location header — which is what you need when verifying an HTTP-to-HTTPS or non-www rule. To trace a whole redirect chain hop by hop, use our redirect checker instead.
Because the request arrives from a datacenter IP with the user agent FreeWebTools Status Checker/1.0. Bot-protection services, WAFs and CDN firewall rules routinely answer automated clients with 403 Forbidden or a challenge page while serving real browsers normally. A 403 from this tool therefore means "refused this client", not always "down".
This is the measured server-side HEAD round trip, including connection work, and excludes browser rendering and page assets. Measured zero milliseconds remains zero; missing timing remains unavailable.
No. The endpoint rejects the hostnames localhost, 127.0.0.1, 0.0.0.0 and ::1, any IP literal in a private or reserved range such as 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x, cloud metadata addresses like 169.254.169.254, and sensitive ports including 22, 3306 and 6379. A hostname is resolved once and refused if that IPv4 address is private; the check is IPv4-only, so treat it as a guard against server-side request forgery rather than a guarantee. Test internal hosts with curl from inside the network.
Different methods, access rules, DNS and network paths can give different results. Review the HTTP code and method limitation.
Sources and standards
RFC 9110 and the IANA registry describe HTTP status classes; RFC 6585 defines429. The linked MDN and Google pages provide documentation. This page applies qualified HEAD observations, not a guarantee of site health, browser behavior or fault location.
- RFC 9110, HTTP Semantics, section 15 — the normative definition of every status class.
- IANA HTTP Status Code Registry — the authoritative list of assigned codes.
- MDN HTTP response status codes — practical notes for each code.
- Google for Developers, “How HTTP Status Codes Affect Google’s Crawlers” — what each code means for crawling and indexing.
- Google for Developers, “Debug Network and DNS Errors for Google’s Crawlers” — what it means when a request never gets a status code back.
- RFC 6585, Additional HTTP Status Codes, section 4 — the definition of 429 Too Many Requests and its Retry-After hint.