Yes, I tried the old Search Console option before I posted in here but sadly, it just redirects you back to the new version. However, I didn't even think about the redirect opportunity and considering the website is built on Wordpress, that should be easy enough to set up.

Thanks so much!

Hi There,

Thanks so much for your reply. The trick with this is that the page that is showing as a sitelink is not even part any of the website's sitemaps. We just rebuilt the website for the client about 3 months ago - went from static website to Wordpress and for some unknown reason - Google is remembering a .php link from the old website somehow, but it is nowhere in our FTP, so if you click on it - it provides a 404 error.

The other disadvantage is that the old website was never SEO'ed or had proper page titles so users are confusing that sitelink as the new website link and it goes to a 404 page and people think the website isn't working.

Have I explained a bit better? Does that change your suggestion? Thanks!

Does anyone have any recommendations on how you can tell Google (hopefully via a URL) not to index that page of a website? I have tried through SEO Yoast to hide certain sitemaps (which has worked to a degree) but certain functionalities of Wordpress websites show links without them actually being part of a "sitemap" so those links are harder to hide.

I'm having an issue with one of my websites - the sitelinks that Google is suggesting are nowhere near the most popular pages and I know that you can't make recommendations through Google not to show certain pages through Search Console. anymore.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Brick and mortar - I have a patio furniture store.

I actually ended up finding a link for Google Customer Service and got on a support call with a rep to review my situation. There was quite a bit of back and forth and proof required to show why I wanted "temporarily closed" vs. Closed and I needed to provide a 're-opening date' to achieve this. But I was able to achieve it.

The other thing to mention is that there are two ways you can be found on Google for Business listings:  1) via Google Maps Search (google.com/maps) and 2) Google Search.

For the Google Maps Search it is not possible (I confirmed with a Google specialist) to temporarily close a location via the Maps. Google Maps requires you to be open or closed.

For Google Search, once the seasonal location is ready to re-open you have to contact them again to have "Temporarily Closed" removed from your listing.

Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for the suggestion. The info you tried above was the first way I tried to mark as temporarily closed but as soon as I tried to close all the "regular" hours I got an "invalid or missing data error". Do you know if this only works if there are special hours set (i.e. for holidays?)

Hi there,

Not sure if anyone will have any insight but I have a seasonal business that I am closed for from September to March. I don't want to mark my business as  "permanently closed" through Google My Business as I don't want my customers to think I've gone out of business. I've seen a few times through forums that you can change your business to temporarily closed, but I can't find the specifics on how to do this. Any insight, suggestion or resources would be great!

Thanks!