To delete or not? That is the question..
-
In the case of an eCommerce store with a large catalogue of branded goods the inventory is constantly being adjusted as products become discontinued. Each year most fashion brands have 2 or 3 launches. At this same time they will delete some (not all) of previous years collections. Once we have sold through the remaining inventory of last season's products the question is how to proceed?
a) delete products to avoid customers landing on page, then only to be disappointed when product is no longer available to purchase..
b) keep products however mark as discontinued / no longer available and show a link to a similar product if applicable..
I am coming around to the opinion that b) provides a better user experience. However will this growing catalogue of old products (pushed to bottom of category page) help keep content of site full and have SEO advantages? If this is the case then that helps confirm b) as best choice??
-
Hi
Thanks. We do canonicalise sizes though not colours as the colour can be an important search term..
-
Ha! Yes, I noticed the Google goggle thing.
I get that each is a separate SKU and landing page. I'm suggesting why compete with yourself? Use canonical tags to tell Google (for ranking purposes) you want to consolidate all the SEO equity (and content) from all three pages into the category page (making it richer and stronger). Theoretically, if someone searches for "SkiEyes ExEyes goggles in red", Google will render the red landing page. If the same searcher searches for "SkiEyes ExEyes goggles", the category page will display.
-
Donna, Thanks for your reply. In this case each of these goggles in each colour is a separate sku and landing page. (Also apologies to use google and goggle in same sentence
-
Maybe I'm misinterpreting your example or intent, but in my mind, the ideal situation would be where Google ranks the category page that lists and links to all the different color options. The specific black, red, and blue goggle pages would be canonicaled back to the main category page, allowing you to consolidate SEO equity there.
-
Thanks for responses so far. I have been thinking further on this question and a further question has presented itself;
Consider the example where you sell ski goggles. Company SkiEyes produces a gents goggle called ExEyes in three colours, black, blue and red. It has been a best seller for years with plenty of sales, traffic and links (one for each colour). Now the blue has been discontinued whilst the red will be out of stock for 2 weeks. In the case of a customer making a google search 'SkiEyes ExEyes' the ideal scenario would be that google ranks in stock black colour at top, then out of stock red and further down the discontinued.. Any thoughts on how this could be achieved?
-
Alick
Thanks for link to moz article which is excellent. I like the suggestion of a custom 404 page for certain cases. Also as 404 pages lose link juice they suggest best option is to leave products on site though with suggested alternatives;
One of the more important aspects to my question was regarding SEO, ie will keeping discontinued products be superior to a 404 and the answer is within the article you link to... Also I am coming to the opinion that the best customer experience is to keep the product on site (however at bottom of list of products in their category) with suggestions for alternative choices. This way the customer doesn't hit a dead end and we keep any traffic and/or link juice ..
-
Donna
Thanks for the Matt Cutts video which I had been unaware of. I would consider our site to be more in the medium category. We are unable to predict an expiry date as our products don't have such a date i.e. some will continue for years and others will sell poorly and be discontinued after a few months. Also I am not in complete agreement that a 404 page is no more frustrating than a page which shows the original product albeit with a discontinued note. At least in the latter scenario the customer has an image and details of the original product to work from. Even better if we make suggestions of similar products...
-
Hi,
Yes option 'b' would be the best choice in my opinion. I also suggest you to read below article.
https://moz.com/blog/how-should-you-handle-expired-content
Thanks
-
Matt Cutts recommends a strategy based on the size of your product inventory. For large sites (like yours), he recommends configuring an unavailable_after meta tag when the page is created. The tag will effectively provide Google with a page expiry date which will be treated the same as a removal request. The page will be removed from search results about a day after the expiry date.
That solution doesn't help folks who have bookmarked the expired product page or sent there from one of your referral partners. For those, you'll still need to create a custom (redirected-to) page that explains what's happened - the product has been discontinued, is no longer available, and showcase similar products, if applicable. As you said, it will provide a much better user experience.
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
-
Question & Answers Forum pluggin for wordpress
I am looking to install on my website a Question & Answers Forum pluggin for wordpress Like MOZ Q&A What pluggin do you recommend for questions and answers Would be to replace the one on this site that i don't like due to some problems i have on configuration. http://www.propdental.es/dentista/
Web Design | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Question #1: Does Google index https:// pages? I thought they didn't because....
generally the difference between https:// and http:// is that the s (stands for secure I think) is usually reserved for payment pages, and other similar types of pages that search engines aren't supposed to index. (like any page where private data is stored) My site that all of my questions are revolving around is built with Volusion (i'm used to wordpress) and I keep finding problems like this one. The site was hardcoded to have all MENU internal links (which was 90% of our internal links) lead to **https://**www.example.com/example-page/ instead of **http://**www.example.com/example-page/ To double check that this was causing a loss in Link Juice. I jumped over to OSE. Sure enough, the internal links were not being indexed, only the links that were manually created and set to NOT include the httpS:// were being indexed. So if OSE wasn't counting the links, and based on the general ideology behind secure http access, that would infer that no link juice is being passed... Right?? Thanks for your time. Screens are available if necessary, but the OSE has already been updated since then and the new internal links ARE STILL NOT being indexed. The problem is.. is this a volusion problem? Should I switch to Wordpress? here's the site URL (please excuse the design, it's pretty ugly considering how basic volusion is compared to wordpress) http://www.uncommonthread.com/
Web Design | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Question on Breadcrumb and Canonical
Hi SEOmozers, I have another question. =] Thanks in advance. First question: How important is the breadcrumb for SEO? I know that breadcrumb makes better UX because it shows how the visitor landed on this page and the breadcrumb may show up in the search engine. But other than that, how important is it? Second Question: If I have a page that can be found via 2 locations, how should I handle this in regards to breadcrumb? For example, I have page A. You can access page A via Category A and Category B. Therefore, what I did was list Page A under Category A and when someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it will redirect to the page A that was found via Category A. The problem is on page A, the breadcrumb is Home > Category A > Page A. So if someone visit Category B and click on Page A, it redirects and the breadcrumb shows Home > Category A > Page A. What should I do with the breadcrumb for Category B > Page A? Should I create another page A and just use canonical on it? Should I create another page A but do not index it? or leave it as is? 1 Page A, can be access via 2 categories. Please advise. Thank you!
Web Design | | TommyTan0 -
H1 tag optimization question
Hey folks, I've got a question about h1 coding. Our H1 tags are currently coded like this: [http://www.rapitup.com/mf-doom](<a href=)" class=" current">MF Doom Do you think this would be better? [http://www.rapitup.com/mf-doom](<a href=)" class=" current"> MF Doom My guess is that the second example would be better, and even if not better we know it's not worse. Thoughts? Thanks!
Web Design | | irvingw0 -
Homepage Title Question? Multi-Keywords or All Encompassing Keyword
Okay so I am currently redesigning my company's webpage. I am making it responsive and giving it a more up to date look with newer features, etc. A facelift, basically. While updating the site i'm also doing some on-page optimization here and there, and am curious about the page title for my homepage. My company offers video production, web development & design, and web marketing. While we do offer each service individually, we are really trying to sell the combination of all three services to our clients and show them how they can work together effectively. Now my question is, in my homepage title, should i list each service offering keyword (which is what i do now) like this : "Video Production - Web Design - Web Marketing • Company Name" Or, should i try to find one keyword that kind of sums up what we do, like this: "Magic All-Encompassing Keyword • Company Name" I'm thinking that since three sort of unrelated keywords are in the page title, it may be viewed as over-optimizing and we won't see as good of results as just focusing on one keyword, which leads me to think that i should try to sum all of our services into one "all-encompassing" keyword such as "media production", which isn't the best choice, i'm just throwing it out there for the sake of this discussion. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Web Design | | RenderPerfect0 -
TOP 5 Questions I Should Ask a web designer or developer?
I want to redesign my website to work better with SEO and crawls. I need to make sure I hire a good designer/developer but I don't have a ton of money to spend. What are the top 5 questions I should ask a web designer/developer to ensure they are good designers and have successfully implemented SEO??...or at least a site that is crawled well and has some SEO built in.
Web Design | | CapitolShine0 -
Another Panda question
Hi all, Yes, it's another Panda question.... Would Panda effect an entire site or just specific pages. Many people have said that it penalizes entire sites, however, some of the questions that Google is said to have asked Panda testers seem to be page specific. What's the general consensus?? Thanks
Web Design | | A_Q0