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  4. Temporarily shut down a site

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Temporarily shut down a site

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • LibertyTax
    LibertyTax last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 12:19 PM

    What would be the best way to temporarily shut down a site the right way and not have a negative impact on SEO?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • KeriMorgret
      KeriMorgret @LibertyTax last edited by Jul 29, 2013, 3:15 PM Jul 29, 2013, 3:15 PM

      I asked the Q&A associates their opinion, and several people also responded that a 503 would be the way to go.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • LibertyTax
        LibertyTax @KeriMorgret last edited by Jul 25, 2013, 5:45 PM Jul 25, 2013, 5:45 PM

        It is due to some legal matter. So we need it to shut it down

        KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Jul 29, 2013, 3:15 PM Reply Quote 0
        • KeriMorgret
          KeriMorgret @LibertyTax last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 4:49 PM Jul 24, 2013, 4:49 PM

          Can you give us some more details about the shutdown (the reasons, why it needs to be so long, etc)? We can help you a bit better if we know more information.

          When we switched from SEOmoz.org to moz.com, we were only down for half an hour, if that. If this is about upgrading, is there a testing server that you can use to get the website rebuilt and tested on the testing/staging server before you make it live? We used multiple staging servers to test out the site and did lots of checks so that we had minimal downtime when it came time to move the site.

          LibertyTax 1 Reply Last reply Jul 25, 2013, 5:45 PM Reply Quote 1
          • LibertyTax
            LibertyTax @KeriMorgret last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 3:44 PM Jul 24, 2013, 3:44 PM

            What if it is more than a week?

            KeriMorgret 1 Reply Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 4:49 PM Reply Quote 0
            • KeriMorgret
              KeriMorgret @CleverPhD last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 3:42 PM Jul 24, 2013, 3:42 PM

              I'm also assuming that you're talking about just a day or two, and not two months. There was a post on Moz last year about this that can also help, in addition to the good info provided by CleverPhD http://moz.com/blog/how-to-handle-downtime-during-site-maintenance

              LibertyTax 1 Reply Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 3:44 PM Reply Quote 0
              • CleverPhD
                CleverPhD @EGOL last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 1:15 PM Jul 24, 2013, 1:15 PM

                Appreciate the positive comment EGOL!

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • EGOL
                  EGOL @CleverPhD last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 1:09 PM Jul 24, 2013, 1:09 PM

                  That was a great answer.  Thanks.  I didn't know that.

                  CleverPhD 1 Reply Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 1:15 PM Reply Quote 0
                  • CleverPhD
                    CleverPhD @LibertyTax last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 12:59 PM Jul 24, 2013, 12:59 PM

                    Thank you - please mark my response as Good Answer if it helps.

                    Cheers!

                    EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 1:09 PM Reply Quote 1
                    • LibertyTax
                      LibertyTax @CleverPhD last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 12:35 PM Jul 24, 2013, 12:35 PM

                      Thank you

                      CleverPhD 1 Reply Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 12:59 PM Reply Quote 0
                      • CleverPhD
                        CleverPhD last edited by Jul 24, 2013, 1:04 PM Jul 24, 2013, 12:30 PM

                        According to Matt Cutts

                        http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2281151/Matt-Cutts-Short-Website-Downtime-Wont-Hurt-Your-Search-Rankings

                        "According to Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts if your website is down just for a day, such as your host being down or a server transfer, there shouldn't be any negative impact to your search rankings. However, if the downtime is extended, such as for two weeks, it could have impact on your search rankings because Google doesn't necessarily want to send the user to a website that they know has been down, because it provides the user with a poor user experience.

                        Google does make allowances for websites that are sporadically having downtime, so Googlebot will visit again 24 hours later so and see if the site is accessible."

                        That said, what should you show Google?

                        http://yoast.com/http-503-site-maintenance-seo/

                        According to Yoast, you should not show a 200 (ok) or 404 (file not found), but a 503 code on all pages with a retry-after header to Google.

                        The 503 (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html) tells Google "The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.:

                        The retry after tells Google when to come back.  You should set this to a time that is generous to allow you plenty of time to get everything back up and running.

                        Another point from Yoast that he links to https://plus.google.com/+PierreFar/posts/Gas8vjZ5fmB - if the robots.txt file shows a 503 then Google will stop wasting time crawling all your pages (and wasting time) until it sees a 200 back on your robots.txt file.  So it is key that you get the 503 and retry after properly on the robots.txt

                        Cheers!

                        LibertyTax KeriMorgret 2 Replies Last reply Jul 24, 2013, 3:42 PM Reply Quote 3
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