Run a traceroute to help identify domain issues.

If your domain isn’t loading and you contact us for help, we may ask you to run a traceroute and send us the results. When we can't identify the problem in other ways, a traceroute helps us find where the domain is having trouble communicating with a server.

Before you begin

• Try clearing your browser’s cache.
• Go through our browser troubleshooting steps.
• Find if the issue is related to your domain, an expired site, or the Squarespace platform.

Run a traceroute

If none of the above solved the issue, use the steps below to run a traceroute for your browser.

Windows

1. From the Start menu, click Run.
2. Type cmd and press Enter or Return. (Note: For Windows 8 and 10, use the search window, type command prompt, then click the Command Prompt result.)
3. In the command prompt, type tracert yourdomain.com, using your custom domain in place of “yourdomain.com.”
4. Press Enter or Return.
5. Copy the information that appears in the results.

Mac OS

1. Open Spotlight Search.
2. Search terminal, then click the Terminal application.
3. Enter traceroute, followed by a space and your website URL or IP address. For example, enter yourdomain.com or 7.7.7.7.
4. Press Enter on your keyboard.
5. Copy the information that appears in the results.

Note: If you have an older Mac OS, you may need to use the Network Utility application to run a traceroute. Open Network Utility, click the Traceroute tab, enter your domain in the first blank field, then click Trace.

Linux

1. Open a terminal window and type traceroute -I yourdomain.com, using your custom domain in place of “yourdomain.com.”
2. Copy the information that appears in the results.

Send us the traceroute

In your reply to us, paste the copied traceroute results.