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The writer's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely outcome of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

In this post I will explicate how to handle cases of planned reanimation. That is, a curt menstruum of time wherein you purposely brand your website inaccessible. This tin can exist due to significant changes to the site or considering of server maintenance.

It should e'er exist the last resort to make the entire website inaccessible, but in some cases it tin be necessary. Beneath you will find suggestions as to how to continue with SEO in mind.

Tell both humans and robots that it's but a temporary shutdown.

In the case of a temporary shutdown, 1 should always inform both humans (visitors) and robots (search engines) and then that they are aware that information technology is a planned closure, and that it is merely temporary. If possible ane should also land when the website is expected to be back online. This volition ensure that both humans and robots will return at a later time to find what they expected to find in the beginning identify.

At that place are two mistakes oftentimes seen when a website is fabricated temporarily unavailable:

Fault ane - All files are removed from the server.

When both humans and robots attempt to detect the website, it will result in a 404 fault, which ways that the requested page cannot be found. This informs neither humans nor search engines on what is actually happening. One will typically be shown a page that looks something like this:

The worst case scenario is that people will think the website no longer exists, and will therefore give up trying to observe it again. Search engines handle this situation in a similar fashion. To them, a 404 fault means that the page no longer exists, and information technology volition in time exist deleted from their index.

Mistake ii - A simple page is put on the server with a brusque message explaining the closure.

An alternative solution to the one above is to remove all files and and then put one very simple file on the server that explains why the website is airtight in one or two sentences. All the old pages are then redirected to this file.

This method may tell humans what the problem is, but information technology nonetheless makes no sense to the search engines. The search engines tin can in fact get so confused past this that they believe that the temporary country of the website – the few sentences explaining the problem – is the permanent website in time to come.

Depending on how the redirection of the other pages has been carried out, ane likewise risks the search engines thinking that all the other pages of the website have been (re)moved, and that only the front folio is to be ranked in search results. This is a sure way to lose rankings.

Briefly on HTTP Status codes

Every time you visit a website your browser receives a message from the server that hosts the website. This message is chosen a HTTP Status code. Every bit a SEO information technology is necessary to sympathise what the most important codes hateful.

200 OK - The request has succeeded. This is the standard response for successful HTTP requests.

301 Moved Permanently - The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent location. This and all future requests should be directed to the given location. This status code is used for 301 redirects. In most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website. A 301 redirect will pass most, if non all the linkjuice from the original location.

302 Institute - The requested resources resides temporarily at a dissimilar location. By using a 302 redirect instead of a 301, search engines will know that this is only a temporary state. No observable corporeality of linkjuice will be passed.

404 Not Found - The server has not plant anything matching the requested location. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. In time, the page will be removed from the search engine's index.

503 Service Unavailable - The server is currently unavailable (this could exist due to overload or maintenance). Search engines volition know that this is a temporary country. This status code should be used when taking down a site for maintenance.

You can read more nigh HTTP condition codes here. Besides cheque out this infographic on HTTP status codes by Dr. Pete.

How to inform search engines that the downtime is temporary.

If you take down your website temporarily, you must inform search engines such as Google. As you could read above, this is done by utilizing the HTTP status code: 503 Service Unavailable, that informs the search engines that the server is temporarily unavailable. To practice this one must first create a file that returns a 503 status code on the server. When the search engine sees this, it will understand the situation. This tin be done by copying the four lines below into Notepad (or the like) and saving it equally 503.php. You must then identify this file in the root of your server.

The starting time two lines tell u.s. that information technology is a 503 status code, and the last line is used to tell when the website is expected to exist online once again. Google understands this message, so information technology is possible to tell Google when to visit the website again. You must either provide a number (seconds) or a date. If you lot live in Denmark similar I do and you lot expect to return on the fifth of Jan 2012, at 14:00, you must put down:

Detect that I wrote xiii:00:00 in the code, fifty-fifty though I wrote 14:00:00 higher up. This is due to the fact that the time must be provided in GMT/UTC, which is, in my example, 1 hour behind local time.

But it is not enough to merely put a 503 message on your server. Yous will receive visitors (Google included) from many different sources and to all sorts of pages of your website. They must all be redirected to the message explaining that the website is temporarily closed.

On an Apache/Linux server, this can exist easily solved by using a .htaccess file to redirect all the pages towards the 503.php file. The .htaccess file is ofttimes used for 301 redirects, but that is not our purpose hither. We will use a 302 redirect. You may have been previously warned virtually using this sort of redirect, and for skilful reason. Information technology tin can exercise a keen deal of harm if non used correctly. Just in this case, it must exist used, and in fact a 301 redirect would be detrimental in its identify.

Salve the half dozen post-obit lines every bit a .htaccess file and place information technology in the root of your server as well.

The 'R' in the last line indicates that this is a 302 redirect. R is 302 by default. To create a 301 redirect, it would have said [R=301, L]. The clever thing about this file, however, is that nosotros tin give ourselves access to the site and simultaneously show everyone else a 503 message. Let'south say you lot have the following IP address: 12.345.678.910. You then put the numbers in line 4 as shown below:

When yous have placed the two files (503.php and .htaccess) on your server, y'all're done. Y'all now have peace and quiet to tinker with your website, equally long as you leave those two files in the root of your server – and if Google visits, they'll know that the site will be dorsum afterward, and you lot've even permit them know when to endeavour again.

But what about passing on the message to your visitors?

How to tell your visitors that the website is simply closed temporarily.

With a few additions to the 503.php file, which nosotros made just earlier, we can pass on a message to visitors:

The above volition outcome in the following message when i visits the website:

And if we look at the response the server provides Google with, with a tool such every bit FireBug, Web-Sniffer.net or the like, nosotros get the following:

Now y'all accept informed both humans and robots to come back later. This is the all-time way to handle server maintenance in gild to prevent Google from indexing the temporary version of the website.

Information technology should be possible to get through a temporary closure without the website'southward rankings suffering serious consequences.

A Quick Note about SOPA Protests

Keri from SEOmoz hither! This post is too helpful if yous're wanting to protest SOPA tomorrow (January 18th) and want to minimize the result on your rankings. Pierre Far from Google shared a a mail service on Google+ chosen Website outages and blackouts the right way that you might want to check out for some information direct from Google.

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Source: https://moz.com/blog/how-to-handle-downtime-during-site-maintenance

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