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
-
301 redirects delay in picking up
Hi I have been involved in the redesign/development of a website which has up until now had a lot of international traffic. On day of migration I uploaded all the 301 redirects to the website (wordpress) using Simple 301 redirect plugin. I tested a number of them and they appeared to be working. I also submitted the new sitemaps to Search Console. Since migration international traffic - particularly from countries such as india, Phillipines, Sri Lanka etc have significantly dropped off whereas the local traffic and some of the international traffic such as USA has remained fairly consistent. Looking at Analytics and entrances recently it appears as though search results are/were showing a number of pages with 404's (one in particular which received significant traffic and for which I had created a 301 redirection) - I have checked this page using the old url and it re-directs correctly for me and today asked a colleague in India to also check - he is getting the redirection fine. Does Google.in take a significantly longer time to pick these up in search results? Or am I missing something?
Technical SEO | | musthavemarketing0 -
URL Structure On Site - Currently it's domain/product-name NOT domain/category/product name is this bad?
I have a eCommerce site and the site structure is domain/product-name rather than domain/product-category/product-name Do you think this will have a negative impact SEO Wise? I have seen that some of my individual product pages do get better rankings than my categories.
Technical SEO | | the-gate-films0 -
What to do with 404 errors when you don't have a similar new page to 301 to ??
Hi If you have 404 errors for pages that you dont have similar content pages to 301 them to, should you just leave them (the 404's are optimised/qood quality with related links & branding etc) and they will eventually be de-indexed since no longer exist or should you 'remove url' in GWT ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
403 forbidden error how to solve them
hi, i have been using a great tool today called screaming frog which was shown to me by Thomas Zickell when i used the tool i found some worrying things for my site www.in2town.co.uk. what i have found is, i have a large number of 403 forbidden status on my home page and i do not know why here is an example http://www.in2town.co.uk/emmerdale/emmerdale-debbie-hits-rock-bottom it loads fine but on the tool it shows it as an error and shows it as having no meta tags or anything but there is meta tags in there can anyone please let me know how to solve this and why it has happened many thanks
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Div tags vs. Tables
Is there any reason NOT to code in tables (other than it being outdated) for SEO reasons?
Technical SEO | | EileenCleary0 -
Keyword in URL vs organization
I have a jobs site that currently has the following structure for jobs: www.site.com/jobs/openings/1234.html Categories used to be listed this way: www.site.com/jobs/openings/accounting But we changed it to: www.site.com/jobs/category/accounting Does it matter? Is one better than the other? The page title, heading, and description also have the word "openings" or "opening" in them.
Technical SEO | | cmp1010 -
Duplicate Content Vs No Content
Hello! A question that has been throw around a lot at our company has been "Is duplicate content better than no content?". We operate a range of online flash game sites, most of which pull their games from a feed, which includes the game description. We have unique content written on the home page of the website, but aside from that, the game descriptions are the only text content on the website. We have been hit by both Panda and Penguin, and are in the process of trying to recover from both. In this effort we are trying to decide whether to remove or keep the game descriptions. I figured the best way to settle the issue would be to ask here. I understand the best solution would be to replace the descriptions with unique content, however, that is a massive task when you've got thousands of games. So if you have to choose between duplicate or no content, which is better for SEO? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ryan_Phillips0 -
Robots.txt and 301
Hi Mozzers, Can you answer something for me please. I have a client and they have 301 re-directed the homepage '/' to '/home.aspx'. Therefore all or most of the linkjuice is being passed which is great. They have also marked the '/' as nofollow / noindex in the Robots.txt file so its not being crawled. My question is if the '/' is being denied access to the robots is it still passing on the authority for the links that go into this page? It is a 301 and not 302 so it would work under normal circumstances but as the page is not being crawled do I need to change the Robots.txt to crawl the '/'? Thanks Bush
Technical SEO | | Bush_JSM0