Searchers accustomed to constant website availability might be disappointed when they come across a 503 status code. However, short periods of downtime are generally acceptable. In the April session of Google Search Central’s SEO office hours, there was a discussion about the possible effects of intermittently serving 503 “Service Unavailable” status codes.
Gary Illyes, a veteran Google webmaster trends analyst, provided clarification on the search engine’s position.
“Serving a 503 status code for an extended period of time will cause a decrease in crawl rate.
Fortunately for you, 10-15 minutes every now and then is not ‘extended’ by any means, so you should be fine.”
The Significance of Uptime
Although achieving 100% uptime is desirable, it is not necessary to retain favorable rankings in Google’s search listings. Websites go through maintenance and updates and may encounter unplanned downtime occasionally. As long as these downtimes are short and rare, they are unlikely to significantly affect crawling and indexing.
While Google did not explicitly define an extended downtime period, it was noted that occasional 10-15-minute interruptions per week are considered acceptable. Previously, Google indicated that web pages could be deindexed if a site remains down for several days.
Preparing for Updates
It’s advisable to use advanced planning and strategic approaches for websites anticipating prolonged periods of downtime. Techniques such as shadowing a staging site or implementing progressive rollouts can minimize the visibility of errors and downtime.
Illyes suggests:
“If you do things by the book, meaning the website keeps being resolvable and the actual downtime is minimal, changing [configuration] should not have negative effects on your pages’ rankings in Google’s search results.”
While maintaining continuous uptime is optimal for user experience, Google’s systems can handle brief downtime without adversely affecting a website’s ranking in search results.
Google’s guidance regarding short 503 status codes offers reassurance to publishers who may worry about the potential negative consequences of website downtime. Many websites follow regular update schedules on a weekly or monthly basis, needing periods of downtime for tasks like publishing new content, updating products, applying security patches, and general maintenance.
Additionally, unexpected outages, server issues, and other unavoidable downtimes can occur. As long as these temporary disruptions are actively addressed, there’s no need to be overly concerned about losing search rankings and visibility.
How This Information Can Benefit You
Website owners, developers, and SEO professionals who manage websites can gain valuable insights into Google’s tolerance for 503 status codes.
Here are some key takeaways:
- Plan for and minimize downtime during updates, but don’t overly stress about short periods serving 503s.
- Monitor analytics and user feedback to ensure users are not significantly impacted by periods of unavailability.
- Prioritize uptime and prompt error resolutions for overall website health.
- Explore strategies like staged rollouts to reduce errors during major updates that require extended downtime.
With Google’s reasonable expectations established, websites can make informed decisions about balancing downtime with SEO priorities.
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