Domain Names
My Hosting Company Is Down – Or Is It?
If we had a dime for every hosting client who called to complain that “we took their site down”!
Hosting companies take a site down for two reasons.
- You didn’t pay your bill.
Any good hosting company has some type of client area where you can view invoices, see when things are due to renew, manage your account, and most likely put a credit card on file. Make sure your email address is current, and you update any card on file. Invoices will usually be emailed to the address on the account. Check your trash or spam folder if you didn’t get any. - Your site is offensive, or infringes on someone’s copyright.
Hosts don’t want to get involved in any legal proceedings that may arise from accusations of copyright infringement. When someone contacts a host, they most likely will suspend or remove the site pending an investigation. Don’t steal someone else’s work.
Barring the above, the most likely reason your site went offline is because YOUR DOMAIN NAME EXPIRED.
“But I never got any renewal notices!”. Are you SURE? Renewal notices will go to the admin email contact on the domain name whois. Many people claim they never got the notices, only to find that the email address is “WAY old, Man, I haven’t used that one in years!” Make sure you keep your domain name whois information up to date at all times. Once the domain expires and goes offline, even once you renew it, it can take up to two days to come back online (propagate).
