301 vs 500 Errors for discontinued products
-
I have a client that has a around 15 "products" (they are pages containing details of the products rather than e-Commerce products) that have been discontinued. The client has suggested 301s but unless the alternative products are replacement products am I correct that we should be using a 500 error?
-
Why not leave the product up (200). Make it clear these items are no longer for sale. For example, pull the 'add to cart' button and use language to cross-sell another product.
-
Hi Holland!
I would also suggest a 301 redirect. The product is discontinued and is therefore permanently gone. While the product that they are looking for might not be there, directing them to the closest related thing would be the best course of action for all parties involved(users and search engines), whether that be a closely related product or a product category page, etc.
-
I do fully understand the link juice issue but is it not confusing to the user to be taken to content they didn't request without explanation? Perhaps I am thinking that the a descriptive 404 might be more useful.
The client is currently suggesting redirecting to the homepage from these pages which doesn't bear that much relevance, in this instance are 301s still the best option?
Thank you for your help!
-
Moz's HTTP Status Codes infographic is a great explanation of status codes. Personally I would 301 them to another page at best a similar product or blog post relating to the service/product at worst another page. 500 error doesn't help anyone either the visitors, links or search engines it just shouts 'server failed to complete the request'
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
-
What server issues might cause temporary and repeated Soft 404/500 Errors that appear to be functioning correctly when checked later from Google Webmaster Tools?
We are experiencing unknown server issues (we think) which are causing Soft 404/500 errors at unpredictable times on 2 websites. When we check on the pages, they’re fine but still show errors in Moz/Search Console. What are some measures we can take to protect from this or figure out what is causing this? Example URL for Soft 404 Error: https://www.advancedtraveltherapy.com/jobs/any/occupational-therapist/any/ Example URL for 500 Error: https://www.advancedtraveltherapy.com/job-detail/ms/physical-therapist/87529740/ Example URL for Soft 404 Error: https://www.advancedtravelnursing.com/search/searchresults.php?jobState=CA&tempType=g&specialties= Example URL for 500 Error: https://www.advancedtravelnursing.com/job/ma/registered-nurse/emergency-room/87108662/
Technical SEO | | StaffingRobot0 -
Duplicate Content - Products
When running a report it says we have lots of duplicate content. We are a e-commerce site that has about 45,000 sku's on the site. Products can be in multiple departments on the site. So the same products can show up on different pages of the site. Because of this the reports show multiple products with duplicate content. Is this an issue with google and site ranking? Is there a way to get around this issue?
Technical SEO | | shoedog1 -
302 to 301 redirect
Our site has quite a few 302 redirects that really ought to be 301's. Our IT department is really busy so the question is, given that the 302's have probably been in place for years, is it worth changing them to 301's now? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
Nginx 403 and 503 errors
I have a client with a website that is hosted on a shared webserver running on an Nginx server. When I started working on the website a few months ago I found the server was throwing 100s of 403s and 503s and at one point googlebot couldn't access robots.txt. Needless to say this didn't help rankings! Now the web hosting company has partially resolved the errors by switching to a new server and I'm now just seeing intermittent spikes in Webmaster Tools of 30 to 70 403 ad 503 errors. My questions: Am I right in saying there should (pretty much) be no such errors (for pages that we make public and crawlable). Having already asked the web hosting company to look in to this. Any advice on specifically what I should be asking them to look at on the server? If this doesn't work out, does anyone having a recommendation for a reliable web hosting company in the U.S. for a lead generation website with over 20,000 pages and currently 500 to 1000 visits per day? Thanks for the help Mozzers 🙂
Technical SEO | | MatShepSEO0 -
404 Errors
Hello Team, I noticed that my site has 1,000s of 404 errors. Not sure how this happened, maybe when I updated our CMS. My question is, should I worry about them. Should I delete them or just leave them alone. Thank you for your feedback!
Technical SEO | | Dallas0 -
Is this a safe 301 redirect?
We are moving our site from one platform to another. Currently on our site we have two homepages. "www.homepage.com" and "www.homepage.com/Index" Both pages have some high quality links pointing in on them. The problem: We are going to be doing a 301 redirect from "www.homepage.com/Index" page to "www.homepage.com" as we are moving platforms at this time we weren't going to create a "www.homepage.com/Index" page all. This leaves this page as an empty URL. With this webpage disappearing all together will we lose traction as we are redirecting an empty URL? Or is it better to recreate this "www.homepage.com/Index" on our new platform redirect it and wait for google to deIndex this page for us? As well is there a tutorial for how to implement 301 redirects or is this something worth looking for a developer and pay someone to do?
Technical SEO | | HCGDiet0 -
Products with discrete URLs for each color
here is the issue. i have an ecommerce site that on a category page, shows each individual color for each product sold. and there is a distinct URL for each color. each product page shares the same content, with the only potentially differentiating factor being customer reviews (not nearly enough of these to differentiate anything). so we have URLs like: www.domain.com/product-green www.domain.com/product-yellow www.domain.com/product-red and so on. i am looking for a way to consolidate these URL while still showing all colors on the category page. the first solution i am considering is using the hash tag. so we would create www.domain.com/product#green, www.domain.com/product#yellow, www.domain.com/product#red. if possible, i would set the canonical tag as www.domain.com/product. the second solution would be to use the canonical tag and keep the URLs as is. the issue i see here is that we would need to create www.domain.com/product and show that page somewhere. www.domain.com/product would the URL that the above color URLs would canonicalize to. what would be the preferred solution? or is there something else?
Technical SEO | | rakesh_patel0 -
301 redirect on the root of the site
Due to some historic difficulties with our URL Rewriter, we are in the position of having the root of our site 301 redirected to another page. So the root of our site: http://www.propertylive.co.uk/ has a 301 redirect to: http://www.propertylive.co.uk/home.aspx We're aware that this isn't great and we're working to fix this completely, but what impact will this have on our SEO?
Technical SEO | | LianWard860