My Website Is Broken — Who Do I Call?

Take a breath. A broken website feels like an emergency — and for your business it kind of is — but almost every kind of "broken" is fixable, often the same day. The trick is that "broken" means very different things, and each one points to a different person to call. Phone the wrong one and you'll spend an afternoon being told "that's not us." So before you call anyone, spend two minutes figuring out the symptom.

First, figure out what kind of broken it is

There are really only four common symptoms, and they each point somewhere different:

• Completely down — "can't reach this page." The site won't load at all. This is usually the server (your host), a domain/DNS problem, or an expired domain that quietly lapsed.
• An error message. A white screen, "error establishing a database connection," or a "500" error. The server is up but the site's code, database, or a plugin has fallen over. That's a developer's job, not the host's.
• Redirects, spam, or a malware warning. Your site sends visitors somewhere weird, shows pills-and-poker spam, or browsers flash a red "deceptive site" warning. That means it's been hacked — a security cleanup.
• Loads, but painfully slow or looks broken on a phone. Nothing is "down," it's just slow, jumbled, or unreadable on mobile. That's a performance or design problem.

Who actually fixes what

Here's the part nobody tells small-business owners. Your host is responsible for the server being on and reachable, and they manage your domain and DNS. So if the whole site is down, calling the host first makes sense. But most hosts will not fix your code, your plugins, malware, or your design — they'll tell you that's "not our responsibility" and point you elsewhere.

That elsewhere is a web developer or a repair service like us. We handle the things the host won't: the error messages, the failed updates, the hacks, the slow pages. The whole reason a broken site drags on for days is that owners bounce between a host who says "not us" and a developer who's hard to reach.

What to do right now

Before you call anyone, do these in order — it makes the fix faster and stops a small problem from becoming a big one:

• Check if it's down for everyone, or just you. Try it on your phone over mobile data, or use a free "is it down?" checker. If it loads elsewhere, the issue is your device or network, not the site.
• Grab the exact error message. Screenshot it. The precise wording is the single most useful clue a fixer can have.
• Don't panic-delete anything. Deleting plugins, pages, or files to "fix" it often makes things worse and harder to recover.
• Make sure there's a backup. Confirm a recent backup exists before anyone changes anything.
• Then get the right fixer. Armed with the symptom and the error message, call someone who fixes that thing.

The 5-step triage

If your site is down right now and you don't want to play phone tag between a host and a developer, that's exactly what we're here for — the first fix is free.