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What should happen to expired real estate listings?
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For a real estate website, when a house is sold or taken off of the market. What should happen to the listing? 301 redirect it to the grouping (such as zip code or city) which that listing resides in? 404 it?
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Do you let the old URLs 404 or do you redirect them?
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So after a year or two there would be thousands of 301 redirects - would you eventually delete these after a year or two?
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I'd usually say redirect it to a category page (zip code or city) straight away but from a users point of view it may not be the best thing to do. Maybe leave the page up with a sold sign and then have a "you may also like" section underneath so they know the house is gone but there are some other options, probably the best for UX. After a few weeks, I'd then 301 it to a category page.
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What I do (I also work on a real estate website):
Short-term (maybe one or two weeks): Leave as is but have a "sold" banner over the listing.
Afterwards: Delete it.
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