Pausing a site - how to do this with minimum damage to SEO for period of pause
-
Hi - Have a site that needs to be paused due to the current global pandemic. Their production is about to go into shut down for 4 weeks (minimum), which means they wont be able to fulfil any online orders.
So what's the best way to pause the site, while minimising any long term impact to any SEO gains so far achieved?
- Banner / interstitial use informing of halted ordering
- Create a landing page on the site with long form content that the banner links to for customers to get more information about the temporary closure of site
- Removing add to cart, purchase and product pricing from product pages/site
Anything else that should be considered here? I've seen reference to application 503, but don't think this is a good idea. Any advice is appreciated.
-
That's a good idea - you could even display a banner ad that pops up anytime a user accesses the site "Shipping on all products delayed x weeks due to global pandemic". I think people would be pretty understanding.
-
Have you considered letting people order whatever they want but adding a big message saying that orders can be delayed up to 4 weeks? That way you will not lose traffic and users who can wait will do so.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Site Speed Testing Tools For Production Sites
Hi Guys, Any free site speed testing tools for sites in production, which are password protected? We want to test site speed before the new site goes live on top priority pages. Site is on Shopify – we tried google page insights while being logged into the production site but believe its just recording the speed of the password page. Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brandonegroup1 -
Multilingual SEO - site using Google translate within existing URL structure
Hi everyone - I've just been looking at a site that simply uses Google Translate through its website. So basically, on any page you can Google Translate the content to any language you like - there's no change to the URL structure according to language, etc. I haven't come across this approach before (simply allowing users to Google Translate withing the existing page) - and it doesn't sit well with me - let me have your thoughts re: the SEO implications. Thanks in advance, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
New site. How important is traffic for a new site? And what about domain age?
Hi guys. I've been building a new site because i've seen a real SEO opportunity out there. I'm a mixing professional by trade and so I wanted to take advantage of SEO to help gain more work. Here's the site: www.signalchainstudios.co.uk I'm curious about domain age. This site fairly well optimised for my keywords, and my site got pretty good content on it (i think so anyway). But it's no where to be seen on the SERP's (link at all). Is this just a domain age issue? I'd have though it might be in the top 50 because my site's services are not hard to rank for at all! Also what about traffic? Does Google want to see an 'active' site before it considers 'promoting' it up the ranks? Or are back links and good content the main factor in the equation? Thanks in advance. I love this community to bits 🙂 Isaac.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isaac6631 -
Negative seo problem
Hello, Someone attacked our website with negative SEO and our website fell drastically. If i use bing webmaster tools link explorer i see dozens and dozens spam links but if open a link i don't find this link in that website. Is it possible that someone added the links and then remove thouse links when we got hit? Or is it possible to hide the links that they don't show up on webpage but they are still there? How can i use Google disavow links tool if there is no links in thouse websites but Bing link explorer shows spam domains pointing to our website. BR, T
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | otsinguturundus0 -
Site Navigation
Hi Mozzers, I am an SEO at uncommongoods.com and looking for your opinion on our site nav. Currently our nav & URLs are structured in 3 levels. From the top level down, they are: 1. Category ex: http://www.uncommongoods.com/home-garden 2. Subcat ex: http://www.uncommongoods.com/home-garden/bed-bath 3. Family ex:http://www.uncommongoods.com/home-garden/bed-bath/bath-accessories Right now, all levels are accessible from our top nav but we are considering removing the family pages. If we did that, Google could still find & crawl links to the family pages, but they would have to drill down to the subcat pages to find them. Do you guys think this would help or hurt our SEO efforts? Thanks! -Zack
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | znotes0 -
Critique My Site For SEO
Hi Everyone, I was wondering if someone might critique my site and let me know what you think. I've done pretty much everything I know to do proper seo for my site. I'd love to hear some critiques about what I am doing wrong. I'm not sure if my titles are okay, being that they are similar amongst pages. The other thing is that for all the javascript buttons on the top I have no followed them since they don't have any anchor text. The way google will crawl my page is through the links in the footer. I was thinking of moving them throughout the body of the page since I hear google isn't giving as much weight to footer links. I also wanted to hear what you think about putting a blog on my site and updating with fresh content as opposed to creating a separate blog and then linking back to my website with anchor text. Thanks for all the help. And glad to be a member Bill
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wsh150 -
Can you advise why my site get outranked by sites with way less authority and so on
Hello SeoMoz, As a new member I first want to thank you guys for your service, seomoz is by far the best resource and toolbox I have ever found. I have a question, or more of a request if you could advise me on what I do wrong.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DennisForte
I have a website: www.letsflycheaper.com with a Domain Authority of 80, and my target keywords are keywords like: cheap business class, business class flights.
My target page is: www.letsflycheaper.com/business-class.php. With all my keywords I am page 2 and I have a real hard time getting on the first page, but if I look at my competitors like: www.wholesale-flights.com with a Domain Authority of 'just' 50, crappy backlinks and so on, they are all on the first page with almost all of my keywords that I want to target. What do I do wrong? Can you maybe give me a couple tips on where I should focus on more? Hopefully you guys can help me... Kind Regards, Ramon van Meer0