Hi Guys, newbie question - might be silly. We have some products we will discontinue. URLs for them were indexed. Now we will not have them anymore and new products are different so it makes no sense to redirect old indexed URLs to the new ones.
Should I remove those old URLs from Google or redirect them to homepage or do something else?
Thanks!
Should I remove those old URLs from Google?
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Reko
Are they getting traffic from organic search? If not, I would let the pages show a 404 error and create a custom 404 page that suggests related products.
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Enes
You should remove this URL from google and also you can use "410 status code" for this product page.
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David
Not a silly question, it's a very common one.
I wouldn't redirect to the homepage as it'd not a relevant page. If they're generating traffic I'd be tempted to leave them live. If they don't, redirect them to a parent category. If there's no relevant page on the site and they don't have any decent links then just take them offline and let them die.
I wouldn't redirect to the homepage as it'd not a relevant page. If they're generating traffic I'd be tempted to leave them live. If they don't, redirect them to a parent category. If there's no relevant page on the site and they don't have any decent links then just take them offline and let them die.
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Israel
Don't redirect. Take advantage of the traffic by either using a custom 404 page like suggested above or by keeping the product page, add a DISCONTINUED label and suggest products related to the one people are trying to see. Like products in the same category/type/brand. That way you can even transfer link value to the other product pages because you'll have internal links to those.
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Dorron
Archive or remove and redirect to the main category of that product...this brings the juice back to the category and towards the new products