Making sense of website statuses

How much do you know about websites?

Other than being able to navigate around them, the chances are you’re not especially familiar with the technical and logistical aspects of website design, hosting or maintenance.

Few people have ever made their own website using a drag-and-drop site builder tool, while even fewer understand the HyperText Markup Language used to code these actions.

HTML is the simplest of the various languages used to create dynamic sites, alongside the likes of CSS, JavaScript and PHP.

And this is just the surface. Below lies an ocean of servers, networks and firewalls, with Deep Web databases supporting product categories or stock details.

Beyond that, there are domain names to buy and maintain, almost 1,600 top-level domains to choose between and some essential site maintenance obligations to adhere to.

As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when you visit a website and discover it isn’t accessible.

Although 1.3 billion websites currently exist, an estimated 85 per cent of these are not being actively maintained.

But how is website status categorised, and what can we learn from the messages displayed when we try to access a particular site?

A quick primer

Website addresses are composed of four elements.

They use the HyperText Transfer Protocol distributed across the World Wide Web, which explains the first sequence of letters in any website address.

Most sites transmit their data securely, earning a lowercase ‘s’ between the http and www prefixes.

After this comes the domain name itself – BroadbandDeals in our case – followed by the top-level domain. We chose co.uk to reflect our status as a UK company.

This quartet is collectively known as a Uniform Resource Locator.

When you visit our website, it displays as you’d expect because its URL is active.

In other words, the site is fully functional, with all the required elements accessible on a host server for visitor devices to download and display.

(More technically minded readers may also observe that it has an MX record and a server responding on port 80/443).

If a site has been moved, its website status may be classed as a redirection.

A permanent relocation is given the 301 status code, and where possible, the device accessing this location will be told to head to the new location from that moment onwards.

Alternatively, a temporary redirect might replace the original address on individual visits.

We published a detailed guide to website error codes last year.

A break from the dorm’

A dormant website is one which can’t be viewed.

Perhaps it’s been deleted, or the domain name ownership hasn’t been renewed – this is purchased on a rolling basis rather than being awarded to a buyer for life.

Someone attempting to view a dormant website might see a blank screen, a HTTP 404 Not Found error or a 503 Service Unavailable message, though the latter is usually temporary.

Then there are inactive websites, which are still technically available but offer no content.

Here, you might encounter a Domain Parked or Buy This Domain message on an otherwise blank page with no sub-pages or navigation menus.

If the site is being monetised, hyperlinks to other sites indicate an attempt to make money from click-through fees. These links should always be avoided, though.

A website might be inactive following a suspension due to a terms of service violation, or because it’s in the process of being deleted.

It will still appear in the global Domain Name System directory, as will a dormant website. By contrast, a deleted website is expunged from the DNS.

There will be no data stored at the site address, which should be available to buy on the open market, and web servers may report various errors when trying to access that location.

Unlike dormant and inactive websites, a deleted site no longer exists and can’t be resurrected.

However, you may still be able to view its content by visiting the Wayback Machine.