What should I do when there is no more stock for a product (e-commerce) ?
-
I´ve several clientes with magento, wp and brazilian Vtex.... usually when a product is out of stock the system allow you to delete or desallow but you will create a 404 erros. There is a plugin to redirect disallow products to home os a personalized page... looks good.
But I´ve just realized when you edit the name (and url) of a product it creats automatic redirect of the product...
Now I´m wondering never delete or disallow a product page anymore.... always edit with a new product so the redirect can send some PR to the new produtc....
Sounds too stupid or make any sense?
-
In this particular case is a female clothing company that provides new stuff each 3 months, they never repete the products!-)
Thanks for all the answers and I think I wlll customize and improve the user experience by implementing a dynamically-generated message via cookies during a 301 redirect. This would result in users who have landed on expired products receiving a message letting them know that the original product they were seeking is no longer available. This enhances the user experience because it informs users on why they are being redirected.
As I´m working with magento I will try to find a ready to go solution as a plugin but If I don´t, I will make my own and send to the forum !-)
Many Thanks !-)
-
Stephanie Chang wrote about this topic on the Moz blog at http://moz.com/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content as well, and that could give you some ideas too.
-
Your client's would have to OK it but often when products are no longer available it is an internal issue and not a lack of manufacturing. On my sites, if I chose to drop a line I will offer both alternatives if I have any but then also a link to where the exact product can be purchased (rel-nofollow of course).
It is more important to me that customers feel like clicking the link to my shop will never be a waste of time than it is to hope for the occasional conversion to another product.
Once a few click throughs mount up, I also find products I have the that the other shop does not and send a "Hi you may have noticed the X clicks I sent you for X product at URL. I noticed you do not offer X but have content relevant to it. If you think it would help us both out, I would welcome the partnership and be happy to keep sending business your way. I think a link to X would work well "here", let me know your thoughts.
I sell a lot more to people who are looking for exactly what I have then I ever did tried to convincing them that what I have is what they are really looking for.
-
Two options.
Option 1 - 301 redirect to a similar sub category level pages for that product.
Option 2 - Set up a landing page which states this product is no longer for sale, and show up similar items for sale. this is a common strategy used by group buying sites.
-
In the case where the client wants the product page removed from the site, we've had custom programming to implement 301 redirects, up one category level, so that the customer is take to relevant products in the same category that they were seeking.
-
I agree with Todd unless you have a good recommendations engine. If that's the case, related or suggested products would still provide value to the user even if the product is no longer attainable.
-
If the product will be coming back, I would direct those platforms to simply notify the user on the product page - while keeping the product page indexed.
If the product is not set to return, redirect to a similar product.
Hope this helps.
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
-
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
I have a metadata issue. My site crawl is coming back with missing descriptions, but all of the pages look like site tags (i.e. /blog/?_sft_tag=call-routing)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | amarieyoussef0 -
Remove Product & Category from URLS in Wordpress
Does anyone have experience removing /product/ and /product-category/, etc. from URLs in wordpress? I found this link from Wordpress which explains that this shouldn't be done, but I would like some opinions of those who have tried it please. https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/removing-product-product-category-or-shop-from-the-urls/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
Same product in different categories and duplicate content issues
Hi,I have some questions related to duplicate content on e-commerce websites. 1)If a single product goes to multiple categories (eg. A black elegant dress could be listed in two categories like "black dresses" and "elegant dresses") is it considered duplicate content even if the product url is unique? e.g www.website.com/black-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/elegant-dresses/black-elegant-dress duplicated> same content from two different paths www.website.com/black-elegant-dress unique url > this is the way my products urls look like Does google perceive this as duplicated content? The path to the content is only one, so it shouldn't be seen as duplicated content, though the product is repeated in different categories.This is the most important concern I actually have. It is a small thing but if I set this wrong all website would be affected and thus penalised, so I need to know how I can handle it. 2- I am using wordpress + woocommerce. The website is built with categories and subcategories. When I create a product in the product page backend is it advisable to select just the lowest subcategory or is it better to select both main category and subcategory in which the product belongs? I usually select the subcategory alone. Looking forward to your reply and suggestions. thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cinzia091 -
4000 new duplicate products on our ecommerce site, potential impact?
Hello, We've currently got 9500 products live on our site at the moment with ~2000 in this category that we're adding the new products in. All of these products we're adding are coming from a site that we own and we're trying to expand the range on our site (the 9500 product site has a lot more visitors than the 4000 product site). However, all these products imported I believe are atleast duplicates from the 4000 product site, but the first ones I have seen (500) are manufacturer duplicates. What issues are we potentially going to run in to? Just for extra information: We have no control over canonical/noindex/robots etc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
Similar product descriptions but with different urls
I had this question before and was not fully satisfied with the answer.. We are selling adhesives and some of the products have the same name and description, the only thing that separates them are the width on the roll.. Are old/online setup are as following, each product has its own product page with more or less the same description. For example here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-100/ and here http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2-150/ The above product pages are for a product called Fentrim 2. its availiable in widhts from 75 to 300mm.. so, its six diffent products pages with more or less the same description. The other variations of the products besides the width. are Fentrim 20, Fentrim IS 2 and Fentrim IS 20. So this gives us 6 x Fentrim 20 product pages with the same description, just the width that changes. 6 x Fentrim 2 product pages with the same description, just the width that changes. 6 x Fentrim IS 20 product pages with the same description, just the width that changes. 6 x Fentrim IS 2 product pages with the same description, just the width that changes. I get that this can cause us problems in the terms of duplicate content. The plan that we have now is to have 4 different product pages with variations instead. For each of those for product pages we have well written and unique content. And have the old ones 301 redirected to them. Like this http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-2 http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-20 http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-IS-2 http://siga-sverige.se/siga/fentrim-IS-20 Today we gain traffic from one product page per variation and it seems that google has picked those ones out randomly, see the attached screenshot.. Will we loose rank? will this increase our position, whats your ideas? // Jonas PG4aAcM
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knubbz0 -
Problem: Magento prioritises product URL's without categories?
HI there, we are moving a website from Shoptrader to Magento, which has 45.000 indexations.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinetrend
yes shoptrader made a bit of a mess. Trying to clean it up now. there is a 301 redirect list of all old URL's pointing to the new one product can exist in multiple categories want to solve this with canonical url’s for instance: shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product-5531 has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieA/product¤cy=GBP has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieB/product has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieB/product, has canonical tag towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product shoptrader.nl/categorieB/product?language=nl has 301 redirect towards magento.nl/nl/categorieB/product, has canonical tag towards magento.nl/nl/categorieA/product Her comes the problem:
New developer insists on using /productname as canonical instead of /category/category/productname, since Magento says so. The idea is now to redirect to /category/category/productname and there will be a canonical URL on these pages pointing to /productname, loosing some link juice twice. So in the end indexation will take place on /productname … if Google picks it up the 301 + canonical. Would be more adviseable to direct straight to /productname (http://moz.com/community/q/is-link-juice-passed-through-a-301-and-a-canonical-tag), but I prefer to point to one URL with categories attached. Which has more advantages(?): clear menustructure able to use subfolders in mobile searchresults missing breadcrumb What would you say?0 -
Keeping E Commerce Product Content Fresh
Hi, Some months ago we created unique content for each of our product descriptions - basically, we removed manufacturers description and made our own unique content. But our content is now, I feel, stale but I'm trying to work out how we can produce fresh content for the product pages and how much is needed for Google to notice the changes? My question is: What does google class as freshness? Would a new photo count? I've always thought that it has to be mainly text content but we do not get that many reviews as our products are not mainstream and it's a small market so are we to create extra bits of text content in the descriptions, and how much?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Online Store With 4 Products Available in 50 Sizes, Need Tips Categories/Products
I own and manage 2 online stores selling furnace filters. http://www.furnacefilterscanada.com and http://www.filtrationmontreal.com/ We have 4 different qualities furnace filters and each of them are avaible in almost 50 different sizes. My store is setup with almost 200 different products. ( 4 filtres X 50 sizes) None of them have variable. This was a lots of work to create 200 different products. The reason I did this is because when searching in search engine, vistors will use such keywords: 16x20x4 filter 20x25x2 furnace filter a/c filter 10x20x1 replacement filter online 20x20x1 16x25x5 filter toronto and so on... Must keywords request in search engine will included the furnace filter size. QUESTIONS: all my products descriptions are the same, the only difference is the filter size, is this Duplicate Content? will it be better to sell 4 filters with 50 variables? if my store use variable I don't see how I will rank on Google when shopper search for keyword like mention before in this post. My page name will always be the same. My description page the same and so on... Furnace Filters Canada is on BigCommerce platform and I love it. I'm in the process of moving Filtration Montreal to CoreCommerce. You can have a look at it here http://furnacefilter.corecommerce.com I'm very limited in SEO knowledge, the way I have setup http://furnacefilter.corecommerce.com I thing is the best way for SEO. What is your opinion & recommendations. Thank you for your help, BigBlaze
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BigBlaze2050