iFastHostingWhy does my site work for me but not for others?
If it loads for you and not for someone else, the site is not broken in general — something between the two of you is different.
When one person sees a site working perfectly and another sees it fail entirely, the site itself is very rarely broken in a general sense — something specific to the second person's path to it is different. That path includes far more variables than most people realise: DNS caches, browser caches, device type, network, even location. Working through which one differs is usually faster than it sounds.
The most common explanation: DNS hasn't reached everyone yet
If a domain's DNS was recently changed — a new hosting provider, an updated record, new nameservers — different resolvers around the world pick up the change at different times, based on how long they were told they could cache the old answer for. You, having possibly just made the change yourself, may be looking at a resolver or a device that's already caught up, while someone else's ISP is still serving the old answer. This is the default explanation whenever a change was made recently and the site "half works" across different people.
Ask what specifically differs
Rather than guessing, get a precise answer to each of these from the person seeing the problem:
- What exactly happens? A blank page, an error message, a timeout, or the wrong site entirely are four different problems with four different causes.
- What device and browser? A fault specific to one browser points at something in that browser's rendering or cache, not the server.
- What network? Home Wi-Fi, mobile data, an office network — each has its own DNS path and, in some cases, its own firewall rules.
- Roughly where are they? Relevant if a CDN is involved, since different regions can be served from different edge locations that don't all update at exactly the same moment.
"It doesn't work" covers a huge range of actual symptoms. A screenshot of the exact error, or the exact page they're seeing, narrows the cause immediately and avoids several rounds of "what do you mean by doesn't work".
Other common causes
A stale cache — theirs, or a caching layer on the site
Their browser may be holding an old, cached copy of a page that has since changed or been fixed. Ask them to try a hard refresh, or better, load the site in a private or incognito window, which starts with no cache at all. If the site also uses page caching or sits behind a CDN, that layer can independently be serving a stale copy to everyone, not just to them — worth ruling out if a hard refresh alone doesn't help.
A browser extension interfering
Ad blockers, privacy extensions and security tools can block scripts, fonts or entire requests silently, with no visible error beyond something on the page simply not working. A private or incognito window typically disables most extensions by default, which makes it a useful test for this at the same time as testing the cache.
Geographic or network-level blocking
If a security setting blocks certain countries or IP ranges — deliberately, as an anti-spam measure, or accidentally, as an overly broad firewall rule — visitors from a blocked region or network will fail to reach the site at all while everyone else is unaffected. Worth checking if the person affected is in a specific country or connecting through a specific network, such as a corporate VPN.
A DNS resolver that's simply wrong
Occasionally an ISP's DNS resolver has an outdated or incorrect record cached well past when it should have expired, independent of anything you've done. There's nothing to fix on your end in this case; the person affected can often work around it by switching their device to a public DNS resolver, such as 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8, while the ISP's own cache catches up.
Confirming it isn't actually you
Before concluding the fault is entirely on the other end, rule out the possibility that you are simply not seeing it because your own connection or browser happens to be caching a working version. Test from a private window, and ideally from a second network such as mobile data, to confirm the site is genuinely fine independent of your own setup too.
If it's still unclear after that
An online tool that checks a domain's DNS from multiple locations worldwide will show you directly whether the record has reached the affected region yet. If everything checks out and the problem persists, support can look at what your domain is currently resolving to from the server side, which settles the question definitively.
Related reading
A site that looks down to you might only be down for you — here is how to check from outside your own network before assuming the worst.
How to clear your browser cache properlySupport will often ask for this first, because a stale cached copy of a page is a surprisingly common cause of a fault that has already been fixed.
How to check which DNS a domain is actually usingHow to find out, with certainty rather than a guess, which company actually controls a domain DNS right now.
How to fix "Error establishing a database connection"A blank page with one line of text, and five possible causes. Here is how to tell which one you have, in the order worth checking.