These days, our internet is more reliable than it was back in the dialup days, where accidentally lifting up the phone from its receiver could disconnect you. This means that for the most part, websites should have no problems loading, but of course, nothing is perfect and you might encounter some errors every now and then.
Some of these error messages might be more obvious, like Error 404 which is basically stating that the page/website does not exist. This could be because you typed in the address wrongly, or that the host has removed the page. Error 403 is also pretty easy to diagnose because it simply means that you do not have access to the page because it is password protected and you do not have permission.
However, some error messages might be a bit more vague.
Have you ever encountered an error message that simply says, “This site can’t be reached”? If you have, you’re not alone and it’s usually quite hard to discern why that might be the cause. Could it be a problem on your end? Could it be an issue with the host server? Here are several ways to potentially fix it.
Use A Different Browser
Try visiting the website on a different browser. If the page loads just fine on another browser, then the issue could be with the previous browser. From there, you can then try to determine what the differences are between the browsers to get a better idea of what you could do to fix it.
Disabling Browser Extensions
Browser extensions are meant to help improve your browsing experience, but sometimes an out-of-date extension or an incompatible extension or a buggy extension can have an impact on how a website loads or is displayed. If you tried the method above and the page loads on a different browser, then try disabling all browser extensions in your previous browser to see if it makes a difference.
Restart Your Internet Connection
Sometimes your modem/router might hang for whatever reason and cause you some internet issues. It might look like you’re still connected but you’re not, so doing a quick restart of your modem/router could refresh the connection and could solve the issue.
Disable Your Firewall Or Antivirus
A computer’s firewall and antivirus software is meant to keep intruders out. For the most part it works just fine, but sometimes, it might get confused and might be overprotective to the point where it can cause websites to not load correctly. Disabling your firewall or antivirus software and retrying the connection could help.
Clear Your Browser Cache
Your browser’s cache is where your browser stores files of websites you’ve visited in the past. The idea is that by storing some files related to the website, it can help it load faster whenever you visit it again. The problem is that sometimes these files can get corrupt, so clearing out your browser’s cache could be a possible fix.
Flushing Your DNS Cache
Similar to your browser cache, the DNS cache is where your computer stores data from websites you visit, except that in this case it mostly stores IP addresses of websites you’ve visited so that it doesn’t have to look up the IP server again when you revisit the website.
To flush your DNS cache, click the Start menu on your computer, search for “Command Prompt” and launch it. In the Command Prompt window, type “ipconfig /flushdns” (minus the quotes) and hit enter. Once that’s done, you should see a message saying your DNS cache has been successfully flushed.
Change Your DNS Servers
By default, your ISP will have automatically assigned you a DNS server to manage your connections. Sometimes there might be an issue with your ISP’s assigned DNS, so changing it could help with the connection. Using free DNS like Cloudflare or Google is a good place to start, and you can check out our complete guide here.
Conclusion
If all else fails, there is a chance that the website or the host could be the problem and that there’s nothing you can do on your end. Since most hosts tend to promise near 100% uptime, usually if there’s an error they will do their best to resolve it ASAP, so try revising it an hour or two later to see if it loads.