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.
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
-
Lightboxes and SEO
Do lightboxes (AKA popup boxes when you click "learn more" type CTAs) have any negative effect on SEO? We are looking at revamping our sites to have more of a tiled approach, and a lightbox with summary content popping out with additional CTAs, directing to pages with more information or free trial pages. Is there any downside to this approach from an organic perspective? is there anything specific to keep in mind when creating these if not?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris81980 -
Google cache is showing my UK homepage site instead of the US homepage and ranking the UK site in US
Hi There, When I check the cache of the US website (www.us.allsaints.com) Google returns the UK website. This is also reflected in the US Google Search Results when the UK site ranks for our brand name instead of the US site. The homepage has hreflang tags only on the homepage and the domains have been pointed correctly to the right territories via Google Webmaster Console.This has happened before in 26th July 2015 and was wondering if any had any idea why this is happening or if any one has experienced the same issueFDGjldR
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | adzhass0 -
CDN for SEO (or not)?
Does CDN impact on SEO or not? There seems conflicting ideas as to whether they impact positively or negatively, I realise that if the page loads quicker this is a good thing for SEO and usability of course. Does Google see CDN as just cheating and a get-around for not doing the work from the ground up and using good hosting etc? Do you have any direct experience? All constructive input much appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
Would changing the file name of an image (not the alt attribute) have an effect of on seo / ranking of that image and thus the site?
Would changing the file name of image, not the alt attribute nor the image itself (so it would be exactly the same but just a name change) have any effect on : a) A sites seo ranking b) the individual images seo ranking (although i guess if b) would be true it would have an effect on a) although potentially small.) This is the sort of change i would be thinking of making :  changed to 
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam-P0 -
Does blocking foreign country IP traffic to site, hurt my SEO / US Google rankings?
I have a website is is only of interest to US visitors. 99% (at least) of Adsense income is from the US. But I'm getting constant attempts by hackers to login to my admin account. I have countermeasures fo combat that and am initiating others. But here's my question: I am considering not allowing any non US, or at least any non-North American, traffic to the site via a Wordpress plugin that does this. I know it will not affect my business negatively, directly. However, are there any ramifications of the Google bots of these blocked countries not being able to access my site? Does it affect the rankings of my site in the US Google searches. At the very least I could block China, Russia and some eastern European countries.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bizzer0 -
Micro sites?
Hi, I have been speaking to seo firms regarding strategies and they mentioned setting up micro sites under domains that are relevant. i.e setting up armanidoamin.co.uk and we use it as a blog type site to update all info, product reviews, news relating to armani. Whats peoples thoughts on this? Does it work? Is it worth the effort? Im not so sure but obviously looking for ideas. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
Domain expiration and seo
My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Multiple sites in the same niche
Hi All A question regarding multiple sites in the same niche... If I have say 10 sites all targetting the same niche yet all on different C-class IPs with different hosts, registrars, whois data and ages can I use the same template, or will Google discern a pattern? Basically I have developed a WordPress template which I want to use on the sites albeit with different logos / brand colours. NB/ All of the 10 sites will have unique, original content and they will NOT be interlinked
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danielparry1