This week one of my long-term clients contacted me to say they were putting their small business on hold for a while, and that they'd like to do the same with their website.

As this can happen to any of us at any time, I thought you might like to hear my suggestions too.  As this client is using our BAWT Content Management System (CMS), they found it very easy to turn off ALL pages apart from the home page.

Let me cover a few things to help you understand what happens when you turn website pages off:

• by turning off the pages you now have '404 error' pages whenever someone clicks links  on the Home page
• this is not a good thing for your website if you ever decide to get it going again
• turning off the page simply 'hides' the content, but all the menus are still active
• anyone who ever bookmarked your website pages in the past 4-5 years will now see "404 error" whenever they click the links they had saved
• All references about your website will disappear from the search engine results over time because those links (from other sites and hyperlinks within your own site) will no longer be active.

To put a website "on hold" there are two things which can be done - the Options are:

1. leave the website visible - all pages "active" - and simply make a note on the Contact page (and possibly somewhere on each page) that currently you are not accepting new clients. Your domain name and all page links remain active, all mentions of you across the internet remain 'live', your business credibility remains intact on the internet - and this is something you can do at no cost
2. hide the entire site so that the only thing which is active is the domain name (with a 'holding page' message), and all bookmarks and mentions of your business across the internet will be removed over time in the search engine results pages (because of the 404 error messages). All search engine rank (and Page Rank) built up since the website started will be lost, and when you decide to start the business again, you will have to start from scratch in the search engines.

In my humble opinion, leave your website pages visible if at all possible.

If it's a financial issue, talk to your website hosting company and see if there is a less-expensive Plan you can move to or ask if they can offer any other suggestions.

If you've had something like this happen to you, and would like to share your experience, please do post a Comment below - in times like this it's always great to hear how others have coped and what their experiences were - good and bad.

Final note - my client discussed my solutions with her accountant, and together they decided to reinstate all the web pages and allow the website to be fully active again, which will help build up the credibility again.

Cheers
Teena Hughes