The short answer
You usually cannot make a practice vanish from the internet, and you should not try to before patients know where to go. If you are selling, transfer your profiles and website to the buyer. If you are closing, tell patients first, then mark your Google and Yelp listings permanently closed, hide or delete your social accounts, and replace your website with a short closure page. Do each step on purpose, in order, a few weeks before your last day.
This guide covers online listings and marketing accounts only. Patient notices, records and any professional or legal duties when closing a practice are outside its scope; follow your own professional and legal advisers on those.
Before you change anything
- •Decide the path: closing, retiring with a buyer, or moving. A sale usually means transferring accounts, not closing them.
- •List every account: Google, Yelp and other directories, social profiles, the website, domain, hosting, email, ad accounts and any paid listings or subscriptions.
- •Check access: confirm who is the owner or admin on each account. Several platforms only let the owner or full-control admin close or delete.
- •Save what you need: export photos, posts and analytics you want to keep, because some platforms remove export access after deletion.
- •Post the news first: share the closing date and where patients can go next on your website and profiles while you can still edit them.
- •Stop paid ads: pause or end ad campaigns so you are not paying for clicks to a closed office.
Google Business Profile
Google gives you three different options, and they do different things:
- •Mark permanently closed: in your profile, go to Edit profile, then Hours, and choose Permanently closed. Google says the profile may still appear for people who search for it, but it clearly shows the business is closed. This is the right choice for most closures.
- •Transfer ownership: if the practice is sold, make the buyer the primary owner rather than closing or removing the profile, so its history continues.
- •Remove from your account: only the primary owner can do this. It permanently deletes your posts, photos and review replies and removes all managers, but reviews and other user content stay, and Google notes the business may still show on Search and Maps. You can turn on the permanently closed option in the same flow.
If a different business will operate at your address, Google's policies say the old profile should be marked permanently closed, not renamed. If you are moving, read Google's policy overview on location changes before editing the address. With several locations, Business Profile Manager lets you mark them closed in bulk. For managing locations during a transition, see our multi-location profile guide.
Yelp
Yelp states that it does not remove business pages on request. What you can do is ask Yelp to mark the page closed:
- Log in to your Yelp business account and open Business Information.
- Choose the option to manage extended closures and follow the prompts.
- Add a short note and a link to your closure announcement so Yelp can verify it.
Yelp verifies closures and will not close a page for a business that is still seeing customers. Once the page is closed, you can no longer reply to reviews or edit it, so finish any replies first. If you are selling, Yelp suggests transferring access to the new owner instead, and for relocations or ownership changes it asks you to contact its support team. Cancel any paid Yelp products separately.
Facebook Page
Facebook offers three options for a Page, and you need full control access for them:
- •Unpublish: hides the Page from the public while admins can still edit it.
- •Deactivate: hides the Page from everyone, including followers, until it is reactivated.
- •Delete: from the Page's Settings, Access and control, choose Delete Page. Facebook deactivates the Page right away and completes deletion after 14 days, and you can cancel during that window.
A good sequence is to post your closing announcement, leave it up for a few weeks, then unpublish or delete. If the practice is sold, give the buyer admin access instead.
- •Export your photos and posts first, because the export tool is not available after deletion.
- •Delete from Accounts Center: open Settings, then the account details, choose Deactivation or deletion, pick the profile and select Delete account.
- •Instagram says the profile is permanently deleted 30 days after the request, a window that varies by region, and that the full process can take up to 90 days.
- •Instagram cannot delete a profile for you, so make sure someone can still log in before your last day.
X, YouTube and other accounts
Go through the rest of your list one account at a time: X, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, health directories and any review or booking platforms. For each one, post or update the closure notice if possible, download anything you want to keep, then use that platform's own settings to deactivate, delete or transfer it. Steps and waiting periods change, so follow each platform's current help page. Directories you do not control usually accept a closure report through a suggest-an-edit or support form.
Website, domain and email
- •Closure page: replace the site with one short page that gives the closing date and where patients can go next, and keep it live for a while so people who search or follow old links find it.
- •Taking over practice: if another practice takes over your patients under an agreement, Google recommends permanent (301 or 308) redirects to the matching pages, not many old pages sent to one unrelated home page, and keeping redirects for at least a year.
- •Removing pages from Google: Google's Removals tool hides a page for about six months. To make removal permanent, take the content down or update it, password protect it or add a noindex tag. Blocking pages in robots.txt is not a removal method.
- •Domain: consider keeping the domain registered for some time after closing. Once a domain expires, anyone can register it and show unrelated content to people who still have your old links.
- •Phone and email: update your voicemail greeting and set an email auto-reply with the closing date and where to go next.
- •Subscriptions: cancel hosting, email marketing, booking tools and other services only after the closure page and redirects are in place.
For selling or merging practices, our guides on marketing due diligence in a practice acquisition and changing a website without losing rankings cover redirects in more depth.
A simple closing checklist
- Choose the path (close, sell or move) and list every account and who owns it.
- Post the closing date and next steps on your website and profiles.
- Reply to recent reviews and messages, and export what you want to keep.
- Pause paid ads and cancel paid listings.
- Transfer accounts to a buyer, or mark Google and Yelp listings permanently closed.
- Unpublish, deactivate or delete social accounts.
- Replace the website with a closure page or set up agreed redirects.
- Update voicemail and email auto-replies, then cancel remaining services.
If you would like help working through these steps, contact our team.
Sources
Pages accessed November 4, 2026. Platforms change their settings and policies, so check the pages for current steps.
- •Google Business Profile Help: Mark your business as closed
- •Google Business Profile Help: Remove a Business Profile from your Google Account
- •Google Business Profile Help: Overview of Google Business Profile policies
- •Yelp for Business: How to close your Yelp business page
- •Facebook Help Center: Deactivate or reactivate your Facebook Page
- •Facebook Help Center: Delete or cancel deletion of your Facebook Page
- •Instagram Help Center: Permanently delete or deactivate your Instagram profile
- •Google Search Central: Remove a page hosted on your site from Google
- •Google Search Central: How to move a site
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we delete our Google Business Profile or mark it permanently closed?
For most closures, mark it permanently closed. Google then shows the profile as closed to anyone who searches for it. Removing the profile from your account only removes your content and managers; reviews stay and the business may still appear. If the practice is being sold, transfer ownership instead.
Can we remove our practice from Yelp completely?
No. Yelp says it does not remove business pages on request. You can ask Yelp to mark the page permanently closed, which it verifies first, and the page then shows the closure and appears less in search.
Will old patient reviews disappear after we close?
Not automatically. Google says user content and reviews remain even when owners remove their profile content, and Yelp keeps closed pages accessible. Reply to anything that needs a reply before you close, because closing a Yelp page ends your ability to respond.
What should happen to our website and domain?
Replace the site with a simple closure page that says when you closed and where patients can go next, and keep it up for a while. If another practice is taking over your patients under an agreement, you can permanently redirect the domain to a relevant page on their site. To take pages out of Google, remove or noindex them; the Removals tool alone only lasts about six months.
How long does it take for everything to disappear?
It varies by platform and is not instant. Google shows a closed profile to people who search for it, Facebook completes Page deletion after 14 days, and Instagram deletes a profile after 30 days, with the full process taking up to 90 days. Plan the steps a few weeks before your last day.