Best way to handle redirection for products that come in and out of inventory.
-
We have a large volume of products that rotate seasonally. From an SEO perspective we are looking for the best method on how to handle these issues.
Currently when crawler or user encounters a URL to a product that is no longer in inventory we are looking at two things. One, the request comes in and send a 200 to a page that says ITEM NOT FOUND. Option 2, is simply send them to a 404.
The product may or may not be put back into production. What is the best method to handle this?
-
Thank you Rob for taking the time to answer. Much appreciated. That's pretty much the direction we started with. I kind of look at it like an internal search. When an internal search is made for a product that doesn't exist, they get returned to a 200 and static item not found page. So we are moving forward this same method.
Our next step is to reduce 8k 404s a week we get!
-
It really does depend on the product and type of site for sure.
-
I agree here, but with the Panda updates this past year, just having pages up won't really do much. You'll need to improve the user experience to build on the page.
I would build on the page, but look to improve the landing pages of the products that are either no longer available, or the pages that are or will still be online but with products that are not available 'at this time'.
Bring in social media, product landing pages, perhaps a posting 'comment' section for customers to review the products (to offer some user generated content), alongside other features like customized descriptions (don't copy the supplier site), features about the history of the product, the origin of it.. etc..
If it's no longer available, redirecting to a products page of similar relation will help keep the client on the site - while also offering various products of similar needs for their use.
Do all this - I and I see a win-win for you
-
I would simply keep those pages live at all times
I keep seasonal pages up... and have found that they creep up the rankings over the years. Next season they are more valuable.
-
Really depends on the products you're selling. I do like Rob's answer about keeping the page live and offering an alternative or capturing an interest list. You still want the sale or to create the lead so providing some sort of call to action is key if these are significant.
If the product is never coming back, I'd def redirect to a close match or a parent category.
-
You definately don't want to use a 404 error code, so avoid that at. There would be a lot of 301 redirects after that as Google isn't a big fan of 404 pages and it doesn't help your 'user experience'.
Because your product pages (individually) might be gaining links and resources/mentions/social mentions, etc, from customers as they find products, a 404 would produce a loss in valuable inbound linking juice into the domain.
I would simply keep those pages live at all times, but build on the pages/products description, history, talk about it's features, etc, keep those deeply seeded and index'd pages in the domain. Then when they come back online (if they do) ir provides users excellent content about the product and in parallel works with thier user experience.
If the product after time doesn't return, then just work to find a solution for those specific pages. Perhaps a directory of 'out of date products' that visitors could reference if they were looking or searching for something in particur on that site - and offer an alternative (if available) to them in it's place?
Hope this helps a little. Rob
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Redirects Advice
We have many redirects in place - and sometimes 2 in a chain. Is there a recommended time you should have a redirect in place?
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor0 -
Regarding out of stock product
Hi, My e-commerce based site https://www.giftalove.com/ For SEO, What is the best way to solutions of out of stock product.
Technical SEO | | Packersmove0 -
Duplicate Product Descriptions
Hi All, After a bit of advice please, we will be selling similar products e.g. A chair which comes in different fabrics and finishes, but is basically the same product. Most, if not all of the ‘long’ product descriptions are identical with only the ‘short’ product descriptions being unique. The ‘long’ product descriptions contain all the manufacturing information, leg option/colour information, graphics, dimensions, weight etc etc. I’m concerned that by having 300+ products all with identical ‘long’ descriptions its going to be seen negatively by google and effect the sites SEO. My question is will this be viewed as duplicate content? If so, are there any best practices I should be following for handling this, other than writing completely unique descriptions for each product, which would be extremely difficult given its basically the same products re-hashed. Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Technical SEO | | Jon-S0 -
Best way to noindex long dynamic urls?
I just got a Mozcrawl back and see lots of errors for overly dynamic urls. The site is a villa rental site that gives users the ability to search by bedroom, amenities, price, etc, so I'm wondering what the best way to keep these types of dynamically generated pages with urls like /property-search-page/?location=any&status=any&type=any&bedrooms=9&bathrooms=any&min-price=any&max-price=any from indexing. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated : )
Technical SEO | | wcbuckner0 -
Redirecting the .com of our site
Hey guys, A company I consult for has a different site for its users depending on the geography. Example: When a visitor goes to www.company.com if the user is from the EU, it gets redirected to http://eu.company.com If the user is from the US, it goes to http://us.company.com And so on. I have two questions: Does having a redirect on the .com will influence rankings on each specific sub-site? I suspect it will affect the .com since it will simply not get indexed but not sure if affects the sub domains. The content on this sub-sites are not different (I´m still trying to figure out why they are using the sub-domains). Will they get penalized for duplicate content? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | FDSConsulting0 -
What's the best format for a e-commerce URL product page
We have over 2000 non branded experiences and activities sold through our website. The website is having a face lift with the a new look and a stronger focus on SEO. As part of this, I am keen to establish what the best practice is for product based URLs. I've researched the market and come up with a few alternatives that are used: domain/category/subcategory/activity_name domain/activity_name/category/subcategory/activity_reference domain/generic_term/activity_reference/activity_name domain/category/activity_location/activity_name Activities are location based but the location can change (say once every 2 years). Activity names, category, subcategory and activity_reference rarely change. Are there any thoughts/ research on the best method? (If there is one) Many thanks in advance for your insights.
Technical SEO | | philwill0 -
Redirect blogspot blog ?
Hi We have an ecom site selling childrens clothing. We startet up with a blogspot blog due to the lack of that option from our provider. I have a few links in to the blogspot blog and realized today that the PA is 39 - the PA of homepage of ecom site is 40. Ive lately been using the ..../blog on my ecom site. The functionality so far of it is so bad that i am considering using the blogspot blog again. How can i best utilize the strength of our blog at blogspot. Just keep posting w anchor text to relevant pages our main site? Is redirecting a possibility at all ? Dan Lærum
Technical SEO | | danlae0 -
301 Redirect Help
Hello! I am getting ready to launch my freshly coded site in the next week or so. My product URLs are changing SLIGHTLY and want to confirm I am going about things the right way: A. My LIVE site store URLs look like http://hiphound.com/shop/dog-collars . My DEV site store URLs look like http://hiphound.com/dog-collars . No /shop directory. B. The dev firm installed the rewrite rule below: ############################################ enable rewrites Options +FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine on #RedirectMatch 301 ^/shop?/$ http://hiphound.com/ RedirectMatch 301 ^/shop?/$ http://hiphound.com ########################################### C. When I manually enter a URL with /shop in the address the website redirects to the correct page which is good. QUESTIONS I HAVE 1. Is the above redirect correct? I need them to permanent. Don't think the above is right... 2. Will links in the Google index be redirected as well? I am assuming yes but just want to confirm. 3. For each page indexed in Google will its pagerank, etc. be passed to the new page using just the 301 above? 4. Do I need to create addtional 301s for each page? So mapping the old page to the new page? Please advise. The goal here is to of course preserve the rankings of the pages already in the Google index. THANK YOU!!! Lynn
Technical SEO | | hiphound0