Discontinued Products

[henya]

We have a medium/large ecommerce site that imports manufacturer products every year (or when new products come in/out)  We are trying to decide what to do with the discontinued product pages.

As we are using shopify we do not have an option of custom404 error pages so we cannot use this. We also cannot do a 30 redirect with a custom message as to why they are being redirected so dont like that idea. What we were thinking of doing was leaving the page with its content and adding a message that the  item has been discontinued and a few similar products listed below with an option of clicking on a link to go up a level to the category/subcategory of that products brand.

My question is:

Should we noindex/follow these pages when they go out of stock so search engines don't continue to index them.

Should we add the tag:

(we do not have advance warning so it would be at the time that we update the listing to say item is no longer available)

My concern with doing the above and leaving it to be indexed is that google may regard these pages as soft 404 if the bounce rate gets very high - as users will not be staying very long on the page.

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

[MonicaOConnor]

http://www.apelectric.com/6241-Generac-Guardian-Series-14kW-p/6241.htm

This is the code I used:

[henya]

Thanks for your response - you are the first one I found who uses it - can you give me an example of a page you've used it on so I can see how you did it? Do you think its a problem to do it in bulk and to only do it once the item is actually discontinued - we get updates from the company of lists of items which are discontinued so its a lot at a time and without much prior warning!

[MonicaOConnor]

I do use it. Whether or not it is a good or bad thing I can't really tell you. In my opinion, it is the best practice because it gives both the searcher and the engine the optimal information and provides the best experience for both. I use the discontinued tag on the pages that I don't 404.

[henya]

Thanks for all your responses. Sounds like everyone thinks keeping the page and just displaying a message that the item is discontinued with alternative suggestions is the best idea which is what we were thinking of doing.

However, noone has answered regarding google's discontinued tag- has anyone used it? Is it recommended or not?

[MonicaOConnor]

Hi there,

I work for a rather large supply company as well. When we have large items go out of stock we repurpose existing pages to advertise new pages. If it is a small product, like a part or something, we 404 the page.

This is an example of a repurposed page: http://www.apelectric.com/6241-Generac-Guardian-Series-14kW-p/6241.htm

404 errors are not a negative thing per say. Of course you don't want hundreds of them because it creates a negative user experience. If a product is truly discontinued, it is better to let the searcher and the engine know that. No following the pages isn't the best idea because it can prevent traffic from getting to your site. We have about 87 404 pages and they have not influenced our organic rankings. I don't recommend 301 redirecting product pages because it can be misleading to the searcher. For example, we rank really well for the Generac 6241. I wanted to 301 that URL to the replacement model, but if someone types in Generac 6241 and lands on Generac 6461, they are probably going to bounce right off the page. That is not good either. One thing I have done in the past is redirect the product page to a related category page. So, the Generac 6241 could have been redirected to the Air Cooled Generators page. I think this was the better way to do it however.

If a page has value, and can be used as a way to direct traffic to another source that is my favorite way to handle discontinued products. At the end of the day, a $15 part doesn't justify the amount of time it will take me to redesign the page, so I let it become a 404 error.

This is a video from Matt Cutts at Google on how they handle 404 pages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oya9Pl7ukNo

[TimHolmes]

As per Moosa's response, I would agree that leaving the products in place is the best option. Would you rather have these pages none existent to search? or would you rather have them available where serps and users can still find them.

If a user can still find them you can then try to upsell from a discontinued item or cross sell to another variant. This way you have a second bite at the cherry and have the chance to still convert a sale. If nothing is available you may miss out on these additional opportunities.

Simply make sure that you demonstrate effectively that the item is not longer available, but these other products may help.

[MoosaHemani]

In your given scenario the best idea is to leave a message a t the top of the page that the product is discontinued and for new products take them to the new products page. Leaving them no follow or follow is up to you.

1. If you will leave them follow with a custom message that will take them to a relevant page will help decrease the overall bounce rate of the website.
2. If you no-follow them it slowly and gradually will be no index from the Google and the traffic that was coming from search engine to those pages will be discounted.

If I would be at your place, I would have designed the powerful message with bright color at the top of the page and will leave them follow as this will allow some of the traffic on that page to move to other areas of the website.

Hope this helps!