The internet is a complex hive of computers that are connected across the world. Though we often think of the internet as this invisible, virtual system, it’s primary infrastructure is physically connected. There are around 380 underwater cables running across oceans and seas to connect the world to the internet. Occasionally, these cables can become disrupted by storms and other events, resulting in internet outages.

However, when a specific website crashes, it’s usually related to something smaller and more technical.

Websites are stored and transmitted using computers. Like any machine, computers can break. They also need to be maintained and updated. Downtime is a normal part of any computer or digital device. Modern server systems have redundancies in place to protect websites and platforms from these actions.

Still, things can go wrong.

In the case of today’s complex websites and web servers, there are literally billions of things that could go wrong. Eventually, something is bound to break. Sometimes, crashes are a result of coding conflicts or machine failure. Often, it’s due to human error. People operate and update websites. People maintain the servers your site is hosted on.

As wonderful as people can be, they make mistakes.

To fix a website crash (or prevent it from happening), it’s important to understand what is most likely to cause the crash. Despite the assortment of possibilities that can bring down a website, crashes are typically caused by a handful of circumstances.

Broken Code

The amount of code in a given website can vary greatly, but even small websites can have thousands of lines of code. Code is a very delicate formula that requires every letter, symbol, and space to be placed in the correct spot. A single misspelling or accidental deletion can cause everything to come crashing down.

In fact, the big Amazon crash of 2017 was caused by a single mistyped command.

Coding errors typically happen when someone is directly working on the website. To avoid these situations, coders traditionally make changes and updates in a staging environment to ensure there are no bugs or glitches. Assuming everything looks good, they then “push” the code to the live website.

However, even if things worked perfectly in the staging environment, new errors can still arise on the live site. If coding changes were just made before the website crashed, then that’s likely the cause.

Plugin/Update Errors

Plugins (often used interchangeably with extensions) are additional pieces of code and software that plug into your website, giving it additional functions or features.  This can range from a simple contact form to an event calendar to an entire social networking system. On platforms like WordPress, there are tens of thousands of plugins to choose from.

While these provide simple, out-of-the box solutions that can save you a lot of time and money, plugins can also cause a lot of problems.

Plugins are not all created equal. Many come from reputable developers and respected companies, while others have more mysterious origins. You should always check reviews and feedback before installing any plugin on a website.

Even well-reviewed plugins can cause problems, though. In some cases, one plugin might have code or functionality that interferes with another plugin. On their own, they can work just fine. Put them under the same roof, however, and the whole house comes tumbling down.

Updates (or lack thereof) can also cause issues. Most plugins receive regular updates to keep up with modern standards, security vulnerabilities, etc. If these updates aren’t made, the plugin might eventually break, and your site could go down. However, sometimes when you update a plugin to the latest version, it can also cause your site to go down. This is where both a testing environment and daily backups are vital to keeping your site running properly.

There can also be situations where the developer of a particular plugin stops creating updates. While the plugin might continue to work for a while, it will likely break as time passes. Also, you may be exposed to security vulnerabilities in the meantime. This is another reason why you should be careful when selecting plugins and extensions.

Server/Hosting Provider Error

If your website is down, and you didn’t recently make any changes, there’s a good chance it’s an issue with your server and/or hosting provider. This situation can be especially frustrating because it’s likely out of your hands. Unless you’re hosting your website with your own servers, the responsibility falls on your hosting provider.

It’s possible your hosting provider is experiencing server troubles. They might be running scheduled maintenance.  They even be experiencing severe weather that’s affecting their hosting facilities (it’s happened to us before). Whatever the cause, the most you can do is reach out to them via email, support chat, or a phone call.

Of course, if your site is down, there’s a good chance other sites are down as well. If that’s the case, then it might take a while before you’re connected with someone.

Massive Traffic Spike

Getting a lot of traffic to your website is usually a good thing. But when there’s a sudden, abnormally large influx of traffic to your website, the site could crash. Anyone who tried to order a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X this past year has seen firsthand what large amounts of traffic can do to even enterprise-level websites.

But why does this happen?