HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

This has got to be one of the most annoying errors a person with a website can see. It literally means nothing at all.

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

It doesn’t tell you what to fix or what the problem is.

Do you know what most resources tell you to do when you see this error?

Reboot your server.

Geez, thanks. OK, I’ll go reboot my server now …

Oh look, it’s working again. So literally nothing I could “fix” was really wrong.

So to summarize, if you run a WordPress site or really any other kind of site and you see:

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.

Try rebooting the server, if you have access to doing that. That could do the trick.