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There can be a lot of reasons why your website might be returning an alarming  “500 Internal Server Error” to you and your website visitors.

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The two most common reasons for “500 Internal Server Error”:

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A Permissions issue

In most cases, a 500 Internal Server Error is due to an incorrectly set permissions on one or more files or folders. In most cases, an incorrect permission on a PHP or CGI script is to be blamed. For more information, please review our detailed article on how to set proper permissions under our Linux based accounts: How do I set file permissions for files

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A Coding Error in a file called “.htaccess”

If you are ceratain that your file/folder permissions are setup properly (as per our file permissions article above) be sure to check that your site’s .htaccess file is properly structured. If you have recently uploaded new changes to your site, you may have accidentally overwritten an existing .htaccess file located in one or more of your website folders. If you’re running WordPress, Joomla, or another content management or CMS system, be sure to check their forums/support site for more specific info on troubleshooting a 500 Internal Server Error. These platforms depend heavily on the use of rules located in .htaccess - and there are various reasons why .htaccess may break these applications. An article on how to fix WordPress .htaccess file is available at: