The 5 Most Common Web Hosting Problems

There are some inevitable issues you might encounter when moving your site to a new host. They may include issues with layout, the way content is displayed, downtime and so on. Here are some insightful solutions that might help you navigate through such issues.

1. Seeing the ‘Coming Soon’ Page after uploading your site

This could be for one of two reasons:

• The web browser is using an old version of your site.
• The place you uploaded your site on your host is incorrect.

The solutions are somewhat simple and straightforward.

Old version of site loading – clear the cache of your browser.

Uploading to the wrong place – this one is a bit more complex, but check on these two things:

• Ensure your site was uploaded to the right folder within your hosting account
• Ensure that in that directory, what you uploaded is a valid ‘index’ file. These files will have names, such as default.html or index.html

2. Changes to your website are not being displayed

This again, has a simple fix: go to your browser settings and clear the cache.

3. My website went down after it was already up

Any fresh changes you made to your site might inadvertently bring your site down. Assuming, however, that this is not the case, these are the two other plausible reasons:

Your hosting service is down. To find out about any downtime, you can contact your host directly. Or information on this might have been provided online.

There is a change with your domain name – typically with ‘DNS settings’. If this sounds unfamiliar to you, get in touch with your hosting service for an easier fix.

4. No images are displayed on your website

In the event that all your image files are missing, the problem could be:

• The images were not uploaded to your hosting account. Try and re-upload them to see if this works.
• The folder in which the images were uploaded to is wrong. To find out the correct destination, right-click on the position the image should be on the site, and select ‘Open in new tab’. This new tab will display the URL being used. Transfer your images to that directory, and you should start seeing them.

5. The layout of my website is off

The tell-tale sign for this is missing layout elements, where the website displays only its text.

The cause for this could be a missing CSS file in your website.

• Re-upload your entire site so that any missed CSS files are re-included.
• If this fails, trace the correct location of the CSS file and transfer it there.

To locate this location:

• Right-click on homepage, select ‘view source.’
• On top of that page, there is a line that resembles: “your CSS file’s directory”
• Ensure that the CSS file is indeed in the above listed directory.