The Service You Stopped Offering

Why the page outlives the service

Because stopping a service happens in conversation and the website is not part of that conversation.

A decision is made to stop taking a particular kind of work, everybody in the business knows, and the page continues doing exactly what it was written to do.

Which is worse than a page that never existed, because it ranks, it persuades, and it produces enquiries the business now has to turn down.

Each of those costs the enquirer's time and a small amount of goodwill.

The four options

• Delete it and redirect to the nearest current service.
• Rewrite it to say you no longer do this and what you do instead.
• Keep it if you would still take the work occasionally.
• Replace it with a recommendation of somebody who does.

The fourth is under-used and frequently the best. A page saying we no longer do this and here is who to call is genuinely useful, keeps the traffic, and builds a relationship with the business you recommended.

Redirecting properly

The technical part, and it matters because the page may have accumulated visibility over years.

Deleting a page without a redirect means anybody following an old link, or arriving from a search result that has not updated, sees an error.

A redirect to the nearest relevant page preserves the visibility and lands the visitor somewhere useful.

Redirecting everything to the homepage is the common shortcut and it is worse, since the visitor arrives with a specific need and no indication of what to do.

Where nothing is close enough to redirect to, a rewritten page explaining the change is better than a redirect to something unrelated.

A worked example

A business that had stopped taking a particular kind of small job two years earlier.

The page remained, ranked well, and produced roughly one enquiry a week, all of which were declined.

That was a hundred conversations a year, each ending in disappointment, plus the time spent replying.

They rewrote the page: a short paragraph explaining they no longer offered it, a recommendation of two businesses that did, and links to what they do offer.

The enquiries stopped, the page kept its position, and one of the recommended businesses began referring work back within a few months.

The page went from a liability to the source of a referral relationship, which nobody had anticipated.

The enquiries themselves

Worth thinking about before removing anything, since they are information.

A page producing a steady flow of enquiries for something you no longer do is telling you there is demand nobody local is meeting well.

Which is occasionally worth acting on rather than shutting off: a service worth resuming, subcontracting, or partnering with somebody to deliver.

Most of the time the answer is still to stop, and it is worth asking the question once rather than treating the enquiries purely as a nuisance.

Counting them for a month gives you the number, which is a better basis for that decision than an impression.

Everywhere else it is mentioned

The part that gets missed, and it undoes the work.

The services list in the menu and the footer.

The homepage summary.

Other service pages that mention it in passing.

Your business listing, where the service categories may still include it.

Directory entries, your email signature, printed material, and the van.

Searching your own site for the term catches most of it, and the listing is the one most often forgotten.

The counter-case

Where the page should stay.

Work you would still take for the right customer or the right price, where the enquiries are worth having and the page should say what the conditions are.

A service paused rather than stopped, such as something seasonal or awaiting a certification.

And a page that ranks for something valuable and adjacent, where rewriting it to serve a current service preserves the position.

That last case is worth checking before deleting anything, since a page with years of accumulated visibility is an asset even when its subject is obsolete.

The equipment and certification version

A related case that arises more often than a service being dropped outright.

A certification lapses, a piece of equipment is sold, or an approval is not renewed, and the capability quietly ends.

Which leaves a page claiming something no longer true, and that is a more serious problem than an obsolete service.

Claiming a certification you do not hold is a compliance matter rather than an untidy page, and it is worth checking annually against what you can actually evidence.

The same applies to insurance figures, memberships and accreditations, all of which are stated on websites and all of which expire.

Saying why

A small choice with a bearing on how the change reads.

A page saying we no longer offer this reads as a business that has narrowed deliberately.

A page saying we now focus on these areas instead reads better still, since it frames the change as specialisation rather than retreat.

What to avoid is explaining at length, apologising, or blaming circumstances, all of which invite questions nobody asked.

Two sentences and a recommendation is the right length.

The annual check

Worth building into whatever quiet period you have.

Read your own services list as a customer would, and ask of each whether you would genuinely take that work tomorrow.

Most businesses find one or two they would decline, and occasionally something nobody has done for years.

Which takes ten minutes and prevents the situation from developing again.

It also frequently surfaces the reverse: something you do regularly that is not on the site at all.

What to do

1. Decide whether you would ever take it.
2. Rewrite or delete the page.
3. Redirect to the nearest relevant service.
4. Recommend somebody who does it.
5. Search your own site for every mention.
6. Check your listing categories.

The fourth costs nothing at all, helps the person who arrived, and is the difference between a dead end and something genuinely useful.

All of it takes about an hour, and it converts a page that costs you time every single week into one that either works or points somewhere useful.

Which pages are worth removing generally is covered in the page you should delete.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.