Using Temporary Redirects for Ecommerce Categories?

[Lisaangel]

Hi

I'm currently going over old category pages for an ecommerce website, and I'm trying to work out the best way of handling old pages. I will be setting up 301s for the majority of pages, as these are 100% dead and gone. I'm struggling a bit with certain pages though, whereby the category is empty but there is always the possibility that our buyers will purchase these products again in the future (or they might not, there's no way to tell). I know that this isn't what a 302 is for, but I'm wondering which would be better in this case: to create a 302 redirect or to do a full 301 and if the products are repurchased at a later date to create a whole new url.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks,

Kate

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Kate

I work with a lot of eCommerce companies and when a category is essentially in limbo - between seasons where stock may be re-bought then I keep it live. To simply redirect to another unrelated page is not, in my opinion the best result for the customer.

If a customer is searching for Levis (just an example) and you don't have any then why would he want to end up on a  generic Jeans page or another brand? The best result is that they see you are out of stock. You could even just put a message on that page saying - Sold Out - stock arriving soon or something like that. (Get the buying plans off the buyers! - they know what is on order for the next 6-9 months!)

The page will remain and get repopulated once stock arrives. If the category is simply out of stock never to return then I would consider redirecting to a higher category - but if it was a brand I may still leave the page as being sold out. (The alternative here is to allow it to 404 so the page disappears all together from SERPs - but then style your 404 page so that they can follow a menu of alternatives).

The last thing you want is a potential customer going round in circles trying to find the brand because you have redirect them somewhere else. So a message like 'We are out of stock of Levis right now but check out these other awesome brands - with a menu' is perfectly fine and a better User Experience (UX)

By creating the best UX you are far more likely to please your buyers and frankly a few pages of skinny content is not going to kill you in SERPS - you have a perfectly valid reason.

Watch Rand's video on alternative methods but I would do this.

Regards

Nigel

[andy.bigbangthemes]

I'm not sure if I follow the "empty pages for which the client would purchase something" part. Are you referring to the site owner's company to purchase stock for those pages?

[Lisaangel]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for that! All I'm getting from it is that I should just do a 301. I'm guessing there isn't the functionality anywhere for a page that may or may not come back.

[andy.bigbangthemes]

Hey Kate,

The guys here @ Moz actually have a really awesome "whiteboard Friday" video on this exact topic, which pretty much covers everything and is much better explained than I could ever interpret it...so...here you go: https://moz.com/blog/rel-canonical

Have a nice weekend!