My WordPress Site Loads but Looks Broken: No Styling or Missing Images

What's happening

The page loads, the words are all there, but it looks like a document from 1998: plain black text on white, links stacked down the left, no logo, no colours, no layout. Or the layout is fine but images show as empty boxes or broken icons. Either way, WordPress built the page correctly. The browser just couldn't load the extra files that make it look right: the theme's style file, the scripts, or the images themselves.

This is a loading problem, not a content problem. Nothing has been deleted from your pages.

Why it happens

The browser fetches the style and image files from an address, and something about that address is wrong or blocked. The most common reasons:

• The site's address changed and those files are still being requested from the old one. This is standard after a migration or domain change.
• A mix of secure and insecure addresses. The page loads over https, but the style files are still requested over plain http, and the browser refuses to mix them. This often starts the day an SSL certificate is added.
• A caching or optimisation plugin combined the style files into one and that combined file is broken, stale or missing. The site looks fine to you while logged in and broken to everyone else: here's why that happens.
• A CDN, a service that serves your files from servers around the world, is pointing at the wrong place or has an expired setting. Here's what a CDN is.
• The theme's files are damaged or missing, after a failed update or upload. WordPress may say "The theme stylesheet is missing" or quietly fall back to a default theme.
• File permissions changed on the server, so the files exist but the browser is refused when it asks for them. This often shows as a 403 error on the style file.

What you can safely try

• Look at the site in a private window and on another device, so you know whether everyone sees it or just you.
• Clear your caching plugin's stored pages, if you have one and know where the button is. If the plugin has an option to turn off combining or minifying files, switching that off temporarily is safe and often fixes it.
• Check Settings, then General. The site address should start with https if your site has a certificate, and both address fields should match.
• Think back to what changed: a certificate added, a host moved, a plugin updated, a theme updated.
• Don't re-upload or delete the theme yourself. If a child theme holds your customisations, replacing the wrong folder loses them.

When to call us

We work on business websites, and this is a standard repair. We find exactly which files aren't loading and why, fix the addresses, the cache, the certificate setting or the theme files, and check the result on a computer and a phone. It's a flat rate you approve before any work starts. Start with Emergency WordPress Fixes.