How do you 'close down' a website?

[Caro-O]

Hello all,

If a company acquires a smaller company and 'absorbs' its products and services into its own website, what is the protocol with closing down the smaller company's site?

So far we added our branding to the site alerting their visitors to the imminent takeover, and 301 redirected certain pages - soon we'll be redirecting all the pages to their counterparts on the main website.

Once that's done, should we noindex the old site? Anything else?

Thanks, Caro

[LauraSultan]

If you haven't done so already, perform an audit of the old site's backlink profile. You don't want to inherit any risky backlinks when you create the redirects. A backlink audit will also help you find any old URLs on the site that also need to be redirected to pass on the link equity to your site.

If you aren't ready to redirect the pages yet because you don't want customers to be blindsided by the switch, you can use canonical tags to canonicalize each page to the counterpart on the main website. That way, users will see the old page, but Google will begin to associate the old site with the new (and the old brand with the new brand). I've done this before when rebranding a business and moving it from one website to another, and it worked beautifully.

Once you are ready to redirect all the pages to their counterparts on the main website, you can point the old domain to the main domain so any URLs automatically redirect to your domain. Set up a custom 404 page with useful navigation and maybe a search feature to help visitors find what they need.  Keep an eye on your server logs and Google Search Console for any 404s so that you can redirect any pages that haven't already been redirected to the appropriate pages.

[Caro-O]

Thank you Laura, that's very helpful. Would you also suggest noindexing the old site once we're done?

[LauraSultan]

No, it isn't necessary to noindex the pages if you add canonical tags or when you redirect them. Once you point the old domain to the main domain and set up any manual redirects, the old pages are irrelevant. You can go ahead and remove the website files from the server and close the hosting account (if applicable). Just make sure you keep the domain renewed and pointed to the new site.

Eventually, Google will update their index based on your 301-redirects.

[Caro-O]

Great thanks, that sounds like a plan.