In the first 30 days after you close a business, the website needs ten simple actions: confirm who owns the domain, turn on auto-renew, move contact details to an inbox you will keep, back everything up, export your search data, keep the site online and secure, update your Google profile, and set a date to decide what happens next. None of it is hard. Missing it is how real assets quietly lapse.
Closures are common. BLS data show about 1 in 5 new US businesses closes within a year, roughly half within five years and about two thirds within ten. In the UK, the ONS reports that only about 38% of businesses started in 2019 were still trading five years later. Many of those businesses left behind a website that still gets visitors.
Here is how the ten points split across the first month:
| Days | Focus | Checklist points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 7 | Do not lose the domain | 1, 2, 3 |
| 8 to 14 | Protect what is there | 4, 5, 6, 7 |
| 15 to 30 | Tidy up and decide | 8, 9, 10 |
Days 1 to 7: make sure nothing lapses
1. Confirm who owns the domain. Log in to the registrar and check the name listed as registrant. It should be you or the company, not a former employee or the agency that built the site. If you cannot log in, contact the registrar now, while the business records are fresh. A buyer will only work with an owner who can transfer the domain.
2. Turn on auto-renew and update the payment card. Business cards are often cancelled at closure, and a failed renewal is one of the easiest ways to lose a site. Check every domain the business used, including old brand names that redirect. Our guide to what happens when a domain expires shows how quickly a lapsed domain goes dark and reaches auction.
3. Move the contact email to an inbox you will keep. Under the ICANN Expired Registration Recovery Policy, your registrar has to warn you at least twice before your domain expires, roughly a month and a week out. Those warnings go to the registrant email on file. If that address is on the business domain or belongs to someone who has left, the warnings will go unread.
Days 8 to 14: protect what is there
4. Take a full backup. Download the site’s files and database, plus any media library. If the site runs on a hosted platform such as a store builder, export products, pages and blog posts before the plan ends. Keep the backup somewhere other than the hosting account. Customer records and order history are personal data, so store them securely, keep them separate from the website files and get advice on what privacy law requires you to keep or delete; this is general information, not legal advice. A buyer of the website does not need your customer list.
5. Export your Search Console data. Search Console keeps 16 months of performance data, so export it now, by date, query and page. That record is the best proof of traffic you will have later. Our guide to proving traffic with Search Console explains what to export and how to share it.
6. Keep the site online, with an honest notice. Do not delete pages or switch the domain to a parking page. Add a short message that the business has closed and, if useful, where customers can go for support or records. The content, the organic traffic and the links from press and associations all depend on the site still answering.
7. Update your Google Business Profile. Mark the business as closed. A closed business stays visible on Google Maps, labelled “Permanently closed”, and the profile can be reopened if it was marked by mistake. Our guide to your Google Business Profile after closing covers what stays visible and how it relates to the website.
Days 15 to 30: tidy up and decide
8. Lock down access. Change passwords for the registrar, hosting, site admin and email. Remove former staff, contractors and agencies from every account. Update plugins and themes if the site uses them. A hacked site loses traffic and trust quickly, and hacked or penalized sites are among those we do not buy.
9. Keep email to the domain flowing somewhere. Many accounts, from payment processors to social profiles, send password resets to an address on the business domain. Set up a forward to an inbox you will keep, so you can still recover those accounts and close them properly.
10. Set a decision deadline. Pick a date, ideally well before the next domain renewal, to decide among four options: sell the site, lease it, keep it running yourself or let it expire. Our guide to whether you should sell, lease or let the site expire lays out the costs and trade-offs, and the real cost of keeping a dead website online helps you price the “keep” option honestly.
What should you avoid in the first month?
A few common moves feel tidy at the time and cost value later:
- Pointing the domain at a parking page. Parked pages replace your content with ads, and search engines and visitors lose the site they knew.
- Redirecting everything to a social profile. The links and rankings were earned by the website, not by a profile page.
- Deleting old blog posts or products. Those pages often carry most of the search traffic, even years later.
- Handing logins to the first person who asks. Someone emailing to “take the site off your hands” should get a written agreement first, not your registrar password. Our guide to website buyer red flags lists the warning signs.
- Letting a former agency keep the domain in its account. Get it into your own name while relationships are still friendly.
What if the company is insolvent or in liquidation?
If the business closed through insolvency, the website is usually an asset of the company, and an administrator or liquidator may be the only person who can sell it. Speed still matters, because renewals do not pause for paperwork. This is general information, not legal advice; speak to the appointed practitioner or a qualified lawyer about your specific case, and see our guide to selling a website when the company is insolvent.
How do you know if the site is worth more than its hosting bill?
Run a quick self-check. Is the site still indexed on Google? Does Ahrefs estimate at least 500 monthly organic visits? Can you name at least two or three strong authority links from respected sites? Does the brand name still rank for some of its keywords? Can you transfer the domain? Those are the minimums we look for.
If the answers are mostly yes, the site is likely worth more than the cost of keeping it. Our lease-to-own terms are roughly $300 to $500 per month per site, paid until the agreed price is paid in full under a written agreement signed before any transfer, and we take over hosting, renewals and upkeep from day one. If they are mostly no, keeping the domain renewed while you decide is still cheap insurance.
What to do next
- Do points 1 to 3 this week, before anything else.
- Export your Search Console data and take a backup before any plan or card lapses.
- If the site passes the self-check, send us your site for a free valuation before your decision deadline.
Frequently asked questions
Should I take my website offline when the business closes?
Usually not. Taking the site down cuts off visitors who still search for the brand, sends links from press and associations to a dead page and makes the site harder to value later. A better step is to add a short, honest notice that the business has closed while keeping the content online. You can always take it down later; it is much harder to bring lost value back.
Who owns the website if the business was a company?
Usually the company, not the founder personally, which matters if you want to sell or lease it. Check the registrant name at the registrar and any agreements with the web agency that built the site. If the company is insolvent or in liquidation, the appointed administrator or liquidator normally decides. This is general information, not legal advice, so ask a qualified adviser about your case.
How long can I wait before deciding what to do with the site?
As long as the domain is renewed, the hosting is paid and the site is secure, there is no hard deadline. In practice, set a date before the next renewal, typically within a few months of closing. Traffic and links tend to be strongest soon after closure, and every month of waiting adds cost and the chance that something lapses.
Do I need to keep paying for hosting after closing?
If you want to keep the site's value, the site has to stay online, so something has to host it. That does not have to be the plan you used while trading. A simpler or cheaper plan, or a static copy of the site, is often enough. If you lease the site, the person taking it over usually takes on hosting, renewals and upkeep from the start.
Find out what your website is worth before it expires.
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