Best practice for a website where the publications (catalogues) expire frequently
-
Hi guys,
Hope to find some smart SEOs around here and where I can to contribute to the community!
I wanted to share an issue we are having with our website, which is focused on the promotional flyers of the supermarket chains. These are often valid for a short period of time and then expire. So it makes no sense to keep them but also, if we delete them, that would create a lot of 404s or something.
So how do you think it is the best way to go around this problem? should we delete them? or when deleted to redirect the dead pages to the homepage? or keep them in an archive live site.com/brand/archive/ ?
Thank you so much for any opinions, much appreciated!
Best
-
I think Anthony's idea on this is a good one and would be worth considering. I guess it depends on how many of these you have rotating at any one time and how many URLs you therefore have to maintain.
My thought on it would be to create a custom 404 page for your site that is a more pleasant landing page than regular 404 pages are. It could provide a nice apology that the content the link took them the person to is no longer available and show a number of anchored links for where the visitor may like to go to next, e.g. where to view other promotional flyers or other pages on the site which may be important to the visitor.
By doing that you provide a better visitor experience. Here are the recommendations from Moz's page on HTTP status codes. I think these make a lot of sense:
----------------------------- When visitors reach 404 pages, they should be given navigational options so they do not leave the given site. Web optimized 404 errors pages should contain:
- notification that the user has reached a page that does not exist
- a search box
- a easy to understand navigation system so the user can potentially find what they were orginally looking to access
- a link to the home page
-----------------------------
I hope that helps,
Peter -
I think this assessment is spot on. I think the superior strategy would what you mentioned at the end. If you updated the content continuously I believe you would create the most value for the user.
-
Hi-
This is a common problem for many websites, think Job Postings or Real Estate.
There are a few ways to handle it, and you have to decide what is best for your business. As of now, it sounds as if each flier is living on it's own unique URL on your site. Here are the scenarios for that set-up.
- Create a unique page for each weeks flyer, let them 404 when removed
- Create a unique page for each weeks flyer, archive them
- Create a unique page for each weeks flyer, redirect all back to parent subcategory/store page
- Create a unique page for each weeks flyer, selectively redirect pages to subcategory/store page if you know there are external links pointing at it
What I wonder is if you could just update the content and keep the URL the same.
website.com/store-name/weekly-flier
This would allow you to continuously build links to the same page and build it's authority and ranking ability over time. You could still choose to archive it if you wanted, but I wonder if that would have value for any of your users.
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
-
Https://www.fitness-china.com/leg-press-feet-placement youtube video affects website speed
In our blog, about Leg Press Feet Placement [https://www.fitness-china.com/leg-press-feet-placement](https://www.fitness-china.com/leg-press-feet-placement) we have added a lot of youtube videos to enrich the content of the article but we found that youtube videos affect the speed of the website, how to solve it
On-Page Optimization | | ahislop5740 -
How my website is dropping?
Hello there guys! My website www.ntcbrasil.com.br is dropping comparing to my competitors. My main keyword is: geotextil
On-Page Optimization | | ffbrunoff
And my main competitor is: www.mantasbrasil.com.br We have better and original content. We have better structure website with better SEO practice (so a i thought). I'm not able to find out what's making the difference between my website dropping and my competitors raking first. This is in google Brazil www.google.com.br If anyone could give me any direction i would appreciate. Thanks a lot!! Bruno Nunes0 -
What is the recommended canonical variation for a website now migrated to Https:?
We recently migrated our site to HTTPS:? In the past, we went with http://www. What is the recommended canonical variation corresponding to these changes? http:// http://www. https:// https://www. Thank you! Erin
On-Page Optimization | | HiddenPeak0 -
Address on Every page of the website for Local SEO? Good or Bad?
Is this good idea to add business address on every page of the website?, How Google see this? and This is Good or bad for ranking?
On-Page Optimization | | Dan_Brown10 -
So I know my website needs work, how do I go about fixing it now and improve my ranks?
I thought at first it was going to be as simple as adding a few keywords here or there. But apparently not. I see where I messed up in the errors, warnings, and notices. How do I go about fixing them?
On-Page Optimization | | taychatha0 -
5 websites, 1 root domain name: good or bad?
Hi guys, I'm new here, so this might be a basic question to the experts here! So here is my situation: I have 1 "umbrella" website (root domain name) that contains 4 different websites, for a total of 5 different websites. They are related, but we needed to brand each website differently to fit each strategy. Q: I have 23 domain names.. this means I have 23 sub-domain names?
On-Page Optimization | | Jacky_C
Q: Is this practice good or bad for my SEO?
Q: should I analyze each domain name/SD? Here are my 5 websites
RD: furisgreen.com
SD1: furcouncil.com
SD2: furfashions.com
SD3: naffem.com
SD4: beautifullycanadian.com Thank you for your help!!0 -
Too Many On-Page Links on a Directory type website?
Hi there, I run a website which is a directory therefore there are a lot of On-Page links. If you take a look at the site, www.south-african-hotels.com, you will see there are a number of links on all pages which are completely relevant. I'm not sure what to remove as everything is relevant. The top navigation is available throughout and that alone has 120 links in it to give users easy access to information. Do I ignore the Too many On-Page links suggestion or do I change something? Any suggestions welcome! Thank you in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | RyanMackie0 -
Title optimization best practices for clients with insanely long business names
How do others utilize keywords and preserve branding in the title tag for clients with a REALLY long name? Two examples. Example 1: Business name is 38 characters long in the following format: [Firstname] [initial] [Lastname] [Businesstype] Services 38 characters is workable, but the keywords for what he offers and this industry in general are long too. He abbreviates to his initials in the domain name - I don't love doing that as the acronym has a meaning of its own. (We unintentionally acquired at least one very amusing if useless backlink thanks to that.) Leaving off "Services" saves a few characters. Example 2: Business name totals 58 characters and references their two related lines of business. Similar to: Rogers Institute of Robotic Studies and RIRS Robot Repair
On-Page Optimization | | MaryAnneG
or (saves a few characters)
Rogers Institute of Robotic Studies and Robot Repair How would you handle that? Use the appropriate half of the name on pages related to that particular LOB? Only use the brand on some pages? Abbreviate more? I've been using their full name on the more "general" pages of the site and omitting it in favor of keywords on the more specific pages . Suggestions? Other ideas?1