Dealing with Dead Pages on an Ecommerce Site

[RobinBertelsen]

Hello everyone!

I'm working on a project for a small jewelry store. They have a store in North Carolina and an ecommerce site (on Shopify - which I loathe!). I'm not exactly an SEO expert, but the client likes the way I handle social media and I know enough to get them much farther down the road than they are now.

The big problem is that most everything sold is handmade and one of a kind. So, the site has LOTS of dead links. I'd love everyone's suggestions on how to:

• Best avoid this in the first place as new products are added and promoted via Facebook, Twitter, blog posts and so on
• Suggestions for managing the sold items - I don't think it seems wise to leave them up as "SOLD"

The site is http://www.laurajamesjewelry.com

I'm grateful for your assistance! And look forward to sharpening my SEO skills.

~Robin

[IanTheScot]

We don't have the unique products that you do but here is the policy we follow:

• For Non-book items that we quit carrying we either 301 redirect to a similar item or to the main category for the product along with a message on the screen that the item isn't available but here is another idea.
• For book items that go out of print we leave the item up but have a pop-up telling the customer the item is out of print and we either link to another edition, format or related category.
• For annual items we have just decided to keep reusing the same sku and changing the details. Why waste all the link juice that may be gained each year by discontinuing an item that hardly changes from year to year but expires each year? For all of our past yearly items we are now 301 redirecting them to our permanent sku.

[RobinBertelsen]

Thanks everyone for the responses. Perhaps leaving them up is the best way to manage it. I have to talk with my client and better understand how she works. I hate having all these pages removed, especially as I pump up the social sharing and, hopefully, add ratings and reviews. Then we'd be deleting plenty of search juice.

[RyanKent]

Hi Robin.

If an item is created, images of the jewelry are taken and the product is listed for sale? The question is, when the item sells doesn't that product page still have value? I would think you should keep the page so potential buyers can view products which have been made. A customer could request a similar item be made. If that is the case, keep the pages, mark the item as sold and offer links to similar products or a custom order link.

If the desire is to only sell items presently in inventory, you can 301 old links to similar pages. If there is a link to a 1 carat diamond ring, find the most similar item or category on your site and redirect the link to that page.

[EGOL]

I don't think it seems wise to leave them up as "SOLD"

Don't make them dead links.  Instead, create a portfolio of past work.   These pieces might attract links, they might inspire sales, they will showcase craftsmanship and style.

Remove the price and any sales yada yada... and then add when the piece was made and a little more information about it.

You might not need a separate page for each one... maybe a gallery of emerald earrings or diamond pendants?... a big long page of beautiful work... Lots of visitor will scroll down that page and decide... "I want one like this but with a ruby"

[Gaveltek-173238]

You bring up a really interesting question. When you say dead links I assume they just lead to nowhere. Ideally you would 301 Redirect (which will pass most of its value to another page therefore keeping some of that SEO steam you have built up) to a page that allows the user to continue to search for similar or related products, keeps them on site with out scaring them away with a "File Not Found" error on their page, etc... I am not familiar with Shopify so I am not sure if its possible. Might be helpful if you were to post one of these links so that we can all take a look at it and work it out as a team.