Speed
Work out why the test could not reach your site
The test received no response at all from your address, so it could not read the page and could not score it.
Why it matters
This is different from an error page, because an error page at least responds. No response at all usually means the name does not resolve, the secure certificate is refused, or something between the visitor and your server is refusing the request. The test cannot see which of those it is, so the useful thing is a short checklist that separates a real outage from a request that was blocked.
How you would notice it
- The test reports that no status was returned, with no other detail.
- You can open the site yourself, but the test cannot.
- The site only opens on your office network or on the hosting preview address.
What to do
Stage 1
- Test from outside your own network first, because a local network or a development machine can reach things the public cannot.
A phone with wifi switched off is the quickest way to be somewhere other than your own network.
curl -I https://yourdomain.com/Stage 2
- If the name does not resolve at all, confirm in your DNS settings that the domain points at the right host, including the www version if you use one.
nslookup yourdomain.comStage 3
- If the response mentions a certificate, confirm the certificate covers the exact name being tested and has not expired.
A certificate issued for www does not cover the bare domain, and the reverse is also true. This is the most common cause of a refusal that looks like downtime.
- Check whether a firewall, a bot protection setting, or a country rule is blocking the test while leaving ordinary visitors alone.
A hosting security mode set to high, or a rule that challenges unfamiliar visitors, will refuse a check even when the site is perfectly healthy for people.
- If the site really is offline, your host status page or your own server log will say so. Fix the outage and test again.
Treat this page as diagnosis rather than as a change to your files. Nothing in your HTML can cause a missing response.
How to check it worked
Confirm it worked
Run the address check again from outside your network and confirm you get a status line back, such as 200, rather than no answer at all. Then re-run the Siege Test and confirm it can read the page and report a score instead of this recommendation.