Daily Updates with RF Rizwan Farrukh
When a product is no longer in stock on an Ecommerce site, there are many things one could do. However, this question is a bit of a struggle, especially when the product pages rank well in search engine results. The main factor here is the size of the site. Below are three different size sites and a unique scenario with each:
Small Ecommerce Sites:
With a site that only has a few products and pages, and a product is no longer available what you can do is show related products on the product page.
Average Ecommerce Sites:
If your site has hundreds or thousands of pages, then a 404 is recommended. As the last thing you want to do is have customers visit your site and be angry each time as all they see is the ‘product no longer available’ sign. If products are just temporarily out of stock, then these pages do not need 404, as you may lose rankings. If the product is temporarily unavailable, then you can make it clear on the site page with a ‘temporarily out of stock’ sign. When it comes to 404, you need to make sure you create a custom 404 page. This will include links to your important pages, such as the home page and search bar. Additional features such as similar products or popular products can also be useful.
Large Ecommerce Sites:
If the site has a large number of turnover pages that are constantly being added, then there’s a special Meta tag that can be used. This tells Google when the page should no longer be indexed or available. This tag should be used on the content that expires, and give Google the permission to remove the page after the date in question.
Once you have determined what spectrum level your site falls into, you can accordinagly make any changes.
