How to Check If a Website Is Really Gone
Updated October 30, 2026
A site that will not load is not always a site that is gone. Servers fail, deployments break and networks block pages. Here is how to tell the difference before you write anything off.
Start with what you can see
Open the address in a private window and on a different network, such as your phone on mobile data. Try the version with and without “www” and with “https”. If it loads anywhere, it is not gone.
Read the HTTP status
The status code tells you how the server answered. You can see it in your browser’s developer tools (Network tab) or by running curl -I with the address.
- 404: the server is reachable but has nothing at that address. This is the usual answer for a deleted site.
- 410: the page is gone on purpose.
- 5xx (such as 502 or 503): the server is in trouble. These are often temporary, so check again later.
- 301 or 302: the address moved. Follow the redirect to see where.
- No answer or a DNS error: the domain name itself does not resolve.
Free hosts answer for every name
Sites on free hosts such as Netlify, Blogspot or Tumblr live on an address the platform controls. The platform usually answers for every name under its domain, so a deleted site often still resolves in DNS but returns the platform’s own “not found” page.
That means a DNS lookup is not proof that a free-host site exists. The status code and the error page are the better evidence.
Confirm it ever existed
Paste the address into the Wayback Machine. If the Internet Archive saved copies, you can see when the site was live and what it contained. You can also use our address checker on this site to see the closest archived copy.
Rule out an outage
Check again after a few hours and again the next day. A single 404 on the homepage can be a broken deployment that the owner fixes. A site that keeps returning the same not-found page for days is much more likely to be deleted.
Write down when you checked
Status changes. A deleted name can be taken by someone new, and a paused site can come back. That is why every report on this site shows the date of its last check.