Short answer: When your website is down, first check whether it fails for everyone or only for you, then look at the error it returns. Google slows its crawling when it gets server errors and eventually drops the URLs that keep failing. For planned downtime of a day or two, Google recommends a 503 page.
What happens when your website is down
For a visitor, a site is down when it doesn’t load or shows a server error. A code in the 500s means the server answered with an error. MDN describes 503 Service Unavailable as a server that isn’t ready, often because it’s down for maintenance or overloaded.
Google reacts to server errors by crawling your site more slowly. Pages already in its index stay there for a while, but anything Google receives with a 5xx code is ignored, and pages that keep failing are eventually dropped. Once your server answers with a 2xx code again, Google gradually increases its crawl rate.
Our HTTP status codes guide covers the other codes your pages can return.
The failures that take a site down for Google
| What fails | What it means | How Google reacts |
|---|---|---|
| 503 Service Unavailable | The server isn’t ready, often for maintenance or overload | Crawling slows; indexed pages stay for a while |
| 500 Internal Server Error | The server ran into an internal error | Crawl rate drops in proportion to the failing URLs |
| Errors that persist | The same URLs keep returning a server error | Those URLs are removed from the index |
| DNS failure | Your hostname isn’t recognized or the DNS server doesn’t answer | Shown as DNS resolution failures in Crawl Stats |
| robots.txt failure | The file returns neither a valid file nor a 404 | Google slows or stops crawling until it gets one |
From Google Search Central, Search Console Help and MDN, read November 4, 2026.
Search Console’s report keeps DNS failures apart from server connectivity, and Google suggests checking with your registrar if you see DNS errors. Our DNS guide explains those records.
If you take your site down on purpose
Google says that to disable a site urgently for one or two days, you should return an informational error page with a 503 status code instead of your content. For longer, it suggests an indexable placeholder home page with a 200 code.
Keep allowing crawling in your robots.txt file, and never return a 503 for robots.txt itself, because that blocks all crawling. Google calls disabling a whole site an extreme measure for a few days at most. While a page returns a 503, Google can’t refresh its title, description, metadata or structured data.
MDN adds that a 503 should come with a page that explains the problem and, if possible, a Retry-After header with the estimated time of recovery. Because a 503 is temporary, it shouldn’t usually be cached. Our robots.txt guide covers that file.
What to do when your website is down
- Open the site from another device on a different network, such as a phone on mobile data.
- Note what you see: a server error code, a DNS error or no answer at all.
- If you changed your domain or DNS records recently, check them first.
- Contact your host with the time it started and the error you saw.
- If you must take the site down for a day or two, serve a 503 page with a short message instead of your content.
- Keep robots.txt reachable the whole time.
- Once the site is back, check the host status in Search Console’s Crawl Stats report.
Our website maintenance guide covers the regular updates and backups a site needs. Our Google Search Console guide shows where the Crawl Stats report is.
How we watch our own website
On November 4, 2026 we switched on our own uptime watch. Every 5 minutes it opens our website and two internal tools. A check fails if the page takes over 20 seconds, the connection breaks, the status isn’t 200 or the page arrives cut short.
Two failed checks in a row send us one message, and we get another when the site answers again, so a single slow moment raises no alarm. Before it blames a site, the watch checks that its own network works.
We tested it with a simulated outage before switching it on. In its first 9 runs it found no failure and sent no alert.
Before your next outage
- You know how to reach your host’s support.
- Something checks your site every few minutes.
- Planned work returns a 503 page, not a 404.
- Your robots.txt never returns a 503.
- You know where your DNS records live.
- You check Crawl Stats after an outage.
RememberGoogle keeps your pages through a short outage but drops the ones that keep failing. Find out fast, and use a 503 when you take the site down on purpose.
Crawl and availability checks like these are part of our technical SEO service.
Quick answers about a website that is down
How do I know if my website is down for everyone?
Open it from another device on a different network, such as a phone on mobile data. If it fails there too, look at the error it returns: a 5xx code means the server answered with an error, and no answer at all can mean a connection or DNS problem.
Does downtime hurt my Google rankings?
Not right away. Google slows its crawling when it gets server errors and keeps indexed pages for a while. Pages that keep returning server errors are eventually dropped from the index, so a long outage can take pages out of Google.
What status code should my site return during maintenance?
A 503 Service Unavailable with a short page that explains the problem. Google recommends it for taking a site down for a day or two, and MDN suggests a Retry-After header with the estimated time of recovery.
Can I block Google with robots.txt while my site is down?
Don’t. Google says to keep allowing crawling through robots.txt and never to return a 503 for the robots.txt file itself, because that blocks all crawling of your site.
Where can I see if Google had trouble reaching my site?
In Search Console’s Crawl Stats report. Its host status shows whether Google ran into availability problems in the last 90 days, including DNS failures, server connectivity and robots.txt errors.
Sources
Read on November 4, 2026. Google Search Central: Temporarily pause or disable a website and How HTTP status codes affect Google’s crawlers. Search Console Help: Crawl Stats report. MDN: 503 Service Unavailable. Our case: our own uptime watch, read on November 4, 2026.