Sometimes a business needs to stop trading online for a while. The owners might be on holidays, a warehouse might be moving or stock might simply run out. The first instinct is often to switch the whole website off. That can do more harm than people expect.
Google has published guidance on pausing a website, and the main message is simple. Keep the site live wherever you can and limit what it does instead. Switching it off completely is only advised for a very short time. Here is how that works in practice for a small business site.
Why switching a site off can backfire
A website does more than take orders. It tells people your opening hours, where you are and how to reach you. If it disappears, customers may not find any information about your business online at all. Google also notes that manuals, specifications and reviews you publish become unavailable, and other sites may describe you less accurately.
There are effects behind the scenes too. Details in a Knowledge Panel, such as your phone number and logo, may be lost. Search Console verification fails, so you lose access to data about how your site performs in Search. Coming back after a long closure can be much harder, because the site may need to be indexed again. Google says it is uncertain how long that takes or whether rankings would return to where they were.
The better option is to limit what the site does
For an online store, Google says disabling the cart is the simplest approach. People can still read about your products and your business. It does not change how visible the site is in Search. Your developer can usually hide the add to cart buttons or turn off checkout without touching the rest of the site.
If you run WordPress, the settings in your store plugin can often do this from the dashboard. Our post on WordPress tips and settings covers some of the basics of managing a site yourself. Test any change on a quiet day first. Check the site on a phone as well as a desktop.
Tell visitors what is happening
A clear notice saves a lot of confused messages. Google suggests showing a banner or popup on every page, including the page people land on from Search. Say whether there are delays, longer shipping times or changes to pickup and delivery. Keep the wording short and give a likely return date if you have one.
Google also suggests adding the data-nosnippet attribute to that banner. This stops the notice text from showing up as the description of your pages in search results. It is a small piece of HTML that a developer can add in minutes. Make sure the banner matches the look of the rest of the site, as covered in our post on keeping a consistent website design.
Update product and event details
Many sites use structured data to describe products, events or a local shop. Google recommends updating Product, Book and Event markup so it matches current availability. Cancelled events should be marked as cancelled. If you have a physical shop, update your Local Business structured data with your current opening hours.
Products that are temporarily unavailable should stay on the site. Google advises keeping those pages live and marking them as out of stock. That way people understand what is going on when they arrive. Removing the pages tends to cause more problems when the stock comes back.
If you really must take the whole site down
Sometimes there is no other option, such as during a server move or a major rebuild. Google says to disable a whole site only for a very short period of a few days at most. For one or two days, the site should return an informational error page with a 503 status code. That code tells search engines the outage is temporary.
Google treats server errors such as 503 as a signal to slow down crawling for a while. According to its guide on how HTTP status codes affect Google Search, pages that are already indexed are kept at first. If they keep returning a server error, they are eventually dropped. Once the site responds normally again, Google gradually increases its crawl rate.
Getting the 503 page right
Google lists a few practical points for the 503 page itself. Confirm the page really returns a 503 by checking it with curl or a similar tool. Send a Retry-After header with a best guess of when the site will be back. Build the page with static HTML and inline CSS so it does not rely on other files. Tell people what comes next, such as the expected return date and how to contact you.
While pages return a 503, Google cannot refresh their titles, descriptions or structured data. So make any changes to those before the outage starts, not during it. Keep the outage as short as you can. A planned rebuild can often be worked on in a staging copy instead, as we explain in our post on testing website design ideas.
Longer closures need a placeholder
For a closure longer than a day or two, Google suggests keeping an indexable home page as a placeholder. That page should return a normal 200 status code. It can explain that the business is closed for now and when it plans to reopen. This keeps your business findable while the rest of the site is offline.
Mistakes that remove a site from Search
Some common shortcuts cause real damage. Google’s page on temporarily pausing or disabling a website lists the main ones to avoid. Most of them tell Google the pages are gone for good. These are the things to steer clear of:
- Returning 403, 404 or 410 status codes for your pages, as these remove URLs from Search.
- Adding a noindex tag or header to the site, which has the same effect.
- Blocking all crawling in robots.txt or making robots.txt return a 503.
- Using the temporary removal tool in Search Console to hide the site.
The removal tool point surprises many people. Google warns that customers may then be unable to find your site to learn its status. Resellers may also keep appearing in search results while you do not. Reducing Googlebot’s crawl rate is possible, but Google says it is not recommended in most cases.
When you reopen
Undo each change in the reverse order you made it. Turn the cart back on, remove the banner and update structured data to show stock and hours again. Google suggests using Search Console to request a recrawl of a few key pages, such as the home page. For many pages, such as a full product range, submit a sitemap instead.
If you reduced the crawl rate, set a reminder to reset it. Let customers know you are back, too. A short post on your social channels helps, and our post on effective social media marketing has ideas for getting the word out. Then check the site works from start to finish, including a test order.
Frequently asked questions
Can I just put a maintenance page on my site for a month?
Google advises against disabling a whole site for more than a few days. For longer closures it suggests a placeholder home page that returns a 200 status code. Keeping the rest of the site live with the cart turned off is usually better still.
What does a 503 status code tell Google?
It tells Google the server is temporarily unavailable. Google slows its crawling and keeps indexed pages for a while. If the error continues, those pages are eventually dropped from the index.
Should I delete products that are out of stock?
Google recommends keeping those pages live and marking them as out of stock. This helps visitors understand the situation. It also saves rebuilding the pages when stock returns.
Will my rankings come back after a long closure?
Google says recovery after a long closure can be much harder because the site may need to be indexed again. It also says it is uncertain how long that takes or whether rankings would be the same. That is why limiting functionality is the safer path.