Temporarily Delist Search Results

[Jellyfish-Agency]

We have a client that we run campaign sites for. They have asked us to turn off our PPC and SEO in the short term so they can run some tests. PPC no problem straight forward action, but not as straight forward to just turn off SEO. Our campaign site is on Page 1, Position 4, 3 places below our clients site. They have asked us to effectively disappear from the landscape for a period of 1-2 months.

Has anyone encountered this before, the ability to delist good SERP for a period of time?

Details: Very small site with only 17 pages indexed within google, but home page has good SERP result.

My issues are,

1. How to approach this in the most effective manor?

2. Once the delisting process is activated and the site/page disappears, then we reverse the process will we get back to where we were?

Anyone encountered this before?

I realise this is a ridiculous question and goes against SEO logic, get to page 1 results only to remove it, but hey, clients are always presenting new challenges for us to address.....

Thanks

[JarnoNijzing]

JellyFish,

i think the best way to approach this is to use every possiblity provided by Google Webmaster including blocking Googlebot to crawl your pages. Then it should take some time to dissapear. You could also 301 redirect your pages (17 is not that bad) to other pages you want to rank higher with.

2. if you ever get back to were you where is not certain and can't be said by anyone. I think their is a good chance that you can get your position back but i't can't be said for sure.

I never encountered this before but i can image the problem your client is having.

hope this helps

kind regards

[RobertFisher]

SEOJellyfish,

There is no way that you can turn off the site, wait 1 to 2 months, turn the site on, and expect to be anywhere near where you were.

So, have you asked any more questions around the "testing" they need to do? I am assuming you are an affiliate and not an agency since you state a line between their site and your "campaign" site.

Are they just tired of paying affiliates?

What do they want to achieve with this?

How are they going to compensate you for going black for up to 2 months?

What are they going to test?

If you do this and the test finishes and you cannot readily regain your ranking, what changes in your relationship?

I think I would clarify all of this before moving to turn your site off.

Best