I had a brief moment of dread earlier this week when I visited one of the sites I manage, only to find a disturbing “That page cannot be displayed” error page. Like I said, though, my fear was short lived thanks to today’s featured sites. These three websites reliably (as far as I can tell) test and report whether a web page is down universally or it is your own computer/system creating the error. Down for everyone or just me? is the most well-known of these resources, though they are all similar programs. CheckSite and Down.io also report the status of a web server to determine if a website error is affecting other viewers or only you.
Web maintenance professionals are not the only one that this tool applies to: any business owner with a website will tell you that good things cannot happen when a website is down. So, before you make a panicked call to your web master at 11 pm, double and triple check your site against these sources to see if there is indeed a significant problem. Otherwise, make that alarming late-night call to your computer tech instead. 
A positive effect of the temporary error was a reminder to check up on my server and hosting account to make sure everything was in order. It is a good idea, errors or no, to be aware of your bandwidth and data usage statistics to prevent real server issues before they occur.
So check your site(s) and then- relax, enjoy your weekend!