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I run into these moments every now and then where I want to make a major update to my website but then I feel I just cant do it because search engines crawl it at that time.

Is there a way I can make the search engines temporarily stop crawling my site instantly while I make updates to it? (Yes, I'm looking for that "Off" and "On" switch)

I feel if I make updates while search engines crawl it, then I'll probably lose rankings in search.

** Update **

I'm more interested in the fraction of time that the upload takes place. I'd like to ideally arrange a time with the bots to stop crawling at that point (between the time upload starts and the time upload ends). I'm not asking for a solution for a long-term downtime.

Mike -- No longer here
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  • You can't actually "stop" them visiting your site, but you can return the appropriate response. – MrWhite Nov 09 '15 at 18:06
  • but if I do that, then I'm being misleading to them and potentially run into penalties with them. I'm more interested in the fraction of time that the upload takes place. I'd like to ideally arrange a time with the bots to stop crawling at that point (between the time upload starts and the time upload ends). – Mike -- No longer here Nov 09 '15 at 18:27
  • Whether it's a minute or a day the course of action is the same. – John Conde Nov 09 '15 at 18:36
  • You can't control when Google crawls your site and besides, what would be the point? Simply put your site down for several minutes, it doesn't harm your site in the slightness. If your concerned about site visitors not being able to access your site during this time, then do what most busy websites do, perform maintenance during non-peak hours, normally in the early hours of the morning... you concern yourself far to much with Google's penalties which are pretty hard to achieve. – Simon Hayter Nov 09 '15 at 21:10

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