Site blocked by Pi-hole?

Pi-hole blocks ads and trackers for your whole network by answering DNS lookups for blocked domains with nothing useful. Browsers then report the site “can’t be reached” or quietly leave parts of the page empty.

Updated November 2026. Menus move around between versions: if a label is a little different, look for the closest match.

Quick test

1. In the Pi-hole admin page (often http://pi.hole/admin), use Disable blocking for 5 minutes. On the Pi-hole itself, pihole disable 5m does the same.
2. Restart the browser (it caches DNS) and reload the page.
3. If it works now, Pi-hole was the cause. Blocking comes back on by itself.

Find what blocked it

1. Open the Query Log and reload the broken page.
2. Blocked queries are highlighted, with a status such as Blocked (gravity), Blocked (regex) or Blocked (exact).
3. To see which of your adlists contains a domain, use Pi-hole’s list search tool (under Tools in the sidebar).

Allow it

• From the Query Log: use the button on that row (Allow; Whitelist in Pi-hole v5).
• Pi-hole v6: Domains page, add the domain as an exact allow. Or on the command line: pihole allow example.com.
• Pi-hole v5: Whitelist page, or pihole -w example.com.
• An exact entry covers only that host name. Use a wildcard or regex allow if a site uses many subdomains.

Good to know

• CNAME in the status: the site’s domain points to a blocked domain behind the scenes. Allow the domain the log shows as blocked.
• “Blocked (external)”: Pi-hole didn’t block it; your upstream DNS did (for example NextDNS or Control D). Fix it there.
• Devices or browsers using their own encrypted DNS skip Pi-hole entirely.

Related guides

• AdGuard Home
• NextDNS
• Control D
• Your network
• All guides