Best way to handle expired ad in a classified
-
I don't think there is a definitive answer to this, but worth the discussion:
How to handle an expired ad in a classified / auction site?
Michael Gray mentioned you should 301 it to it's category page, and I'm inclined to agree with him. But some analysts say you should return a "product/ad expired" page with a 404.
For the user I think the 404 aproach is best, but from a SEO perspective that means I'm throwing link juice out.
What if I 301 him from the ad, and show a message saying why they're seeing the listing page instead of the product page?
Thoughts?
-
I would do #3.
-
Great inputs!
But what if, for legal reasons (price, pictures, etc), the ad has to be removed after it has expired. (real case here)
Ideas:
- Modify the ad page and return a 200? (remove ad data and add a message saying it's expired)
- Throw a friendly 404 page, saying the ad has expired and show other options for the user to navigate to
- 301 to it's parent page
(3) is my favourite, but (2) may be the best option for users.
Thoughts?
-
Interesting...
I don't know how "private" selling prices are in your area but maybe a couple pages on your site like thiese.....
WHAT YOU CAN BUY IN YOURCITY FOR $100,000
This would be a point of reference for buyers and sellers. Where I live there is a huge divergence between askin' and sellin' prices. They ask for the moon but get something a lot less.
RECENT SALES PRICES IN YOURCITY...
Nosy people would love this.
-
I do the same thing with our real estate site. If a listing has expired, I keep the page active, but I put a note at the top saying, "This listing has sold! Contact us and we can find you similar listings in the city."
My expired listings bring in a lot of search traffic.
-
Who is going to bet against Michael Gray? I think that you should listen to him.
I would give his answer one tweak. He says....
If the product goes out of stock forever, you have a couple choices. You can leave the page up with a discontinued notice on the page. IMHO that’s not the best way to go for search engines. Ideally I’d like to not lose any link equity and 301 the product page to a similar product, category/department page, or home page.
I would do exactly what he says 99% of the time, however, if that page is pulling a lot of search engine traffic and same manufacturer has a replacement product or something close that substitutes, I would leave that page in place and use it to explain... "This product has been retired but a new and improved widget is available... (then give the sales pitch for the new model with a buy button). This approach would be especially valuable if the product is something like running shoes where repeat customers with very high loyalty are looking to replace their favorite shoes up to several times per year.
When this shoe was replaced by Addiction there was a mad scramble to buy up all existing stock... (I am probably only person posting here old enough to have worn out a couple dozen pairs)
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
-
Clean-up Question after a wordpress site Hack added pages with external links from a massive link wheel?
Hey All, Thought I would throw this out to ensure I am dotting my "i's" and crossing my "t's"..... Client WordPress site was hacked injected 3-4 pages that cross linked to hundreds (affiliate junk spam link wheel). Pages were removed, 3rd party cleared all malware/viruses. Heavy duty firewall and security monitoring are in place. Hacked pages are now showing as 404. No penalties, ranking issues....If anything there was a temporary BOOST in rankings due to the large link-wheel type net that the pages were receiving....That has since leveled out rankings. I guess my question is, in your opinion is it best to let those pages 404, I am noticing a large amount of links going to them from all over the world from this large link net that was built. I find the temptation to 301 re-direct deleted pages to the homepage difficult...lol..{the temptation is REAL}. Is there anything I am missing? Any other steps that YOU would take? I am assuming letting those pages 404 would be the best bet, as in time they will roll off index.... Thank you in advance, I appreciate any feedback or opinions....
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Anthony_Howard0 -
Want to know Best Method to fix keyword cannibalization issue?
I have a website that has been experiencing keyword cannibalization issue since last 2-3 months. We have one main key search term to bring our website TOP ranking, but we have been seeing our website’s 2 different pages ranking strangely sometime for 1st page& sometime for 2nd page that one main key search term. As e.g.:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Aman_123
our main key search term 1st page rank sometime instead 2nd page
our main key search term 2nd page rank sometime instead page I am looking for best solution here to get this fixed..0 -
I am launching an international site. what is the best domain strategy
Hi Guys, I am launching a site across the US, UK and UAE. Do I go **test.com/uk test.com/us test.com/UAE -- **or do I go us.Test.com UAe.test.com us.test.com? Which is best for SEO?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Johnny_AppleSeed1 -
Am I over "Optimising My Site" or following "Best Practice"
Hi We're developing our site an wanted to ask if we are "over optimising" or following best practice. Maybe you have some recommendations. I've provided 4 examples below. Eventually we'll use Moz on page grader but as a new start up, I'd appreciate your help. Thank you, Faye. 1. URL: http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/browns/cipressa/ PAGE TITLE: Cipressa | Engineered Brown Wood | The Wood Galleries H1: Cipressa – Engineered Brown Wood KEYWORD: Engineered Brown Wood META: Buy Cipressa Brown Engineered Wood, available at The Wood Galleries, London. Provides an Exceptional Foundation for Elegant Décor & Extravagant Furnishings. IMAGE TAG: Brown Engineered Flooring KEYWORD IN BODY CONTENT: YES (1) 2. URL: http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/beiges/mauro/ H1: Mauro | Beige Engineered Wood | The Wood Galleries PAGE TITLE: Mauro – Beige Engineered Wood KEYWORD: Beige Engineered Wood META: Buy Mauro Beige Engineered Wood Flooring, available at The Wood Galleries, London. Designed to deliver Rich, Dark Undertones with Light hues of Muted Brown. IMG TAG: Beige Wood Flooring KEYWORD IN BODY CONTENT: YES (2) **3. URL: http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/beiges/vela-oak/ ** H1: Vela – Beige Engineered Oak PAGE TITLE: Vela | Beige Engineered Oak | The Wood Galleries KEYWORD: Beige Engineered Oak META: Buy Vela Beige Engineered Oak Wood, available at The Wood Galleries, London. Crafted from the most widely respected hardwoods in the world. IMG TAG: Engineered Oak Flooring KEYWORD IN BODY CONTENT: YES (1) 4. URL: http://www.thewoodgalleries.co.uk/engineered-wood/darks-blacks/ciro-rustic/ H1: Ciro – Engineered Rustic Wood PAGE TITLE: Ciro | Engineered Rustic Wood | The Wood Galleries KEYWORD: Engineered Rustic Wood META: Buy Ciro Engineered Rustic Wood, at The Wood Galleries, London. Its stylishly classic oak look exudes a sense of luxury that is simply undeniable. IMG TAG: Dark Wood Flooring, The Wood Galleries KEY WORD IN BODY CONTENT: YES (2)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Faye2340 -
I've purchased a PR 6 domain what will be best use of it ?
I've purchased a PR 6 domain what will be best use of it ? Should make a new site or redirect it to my low pr sites? Or I wasted my $100 ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IndiaFPS0 -
Blogger relationship - One Off VS periodic monthly blogging (which is best)
Good day all, I am interested in building relationships with my bloggers (i.e...people that are interested in my website and blog about it regularly). I would also propose to them the idea of blogging about our page regularly, perhaps recurring monthly. If the strategy is in place, could receiving links from the same bloggers each month cause any negative SEO effects? Thanks for your input.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | 90miLLA0 -
How to Handle Sketchy Inbound Links to Forum Profile Pages
Hey Everyone, we recently discovered that one of our craft-related websites has a bunch of spam profiles with very sketchy backlink profiles. I just discovered this by looking at the Top Pages report in OpenSiteExplorer.org for our site, and noticed that a good chunk of our top pages are viagra/levitra/etc. type forum profile pages with loads of backlinks from sketchy websites (porn sites, sketchy link farms, etc.). So, some spambot has been building profiles on our site and then building backlinks to those profiles. Now, my question is...we can delete all these profiles, but how should we handle all of these sketchy inbound links? If all of the spam forum profile pages produce true 404 Error pages (when we delete them), will that evaporate the link equity? Or, could we still get penalized by Google? Do we need to use the Link Disavow tool? Also note that these forum profile pages have all been set to "noindex,nofollow" months ago. Not sure how that affects things. This is going to be a time waster for me, but I want to ensure that we don't get penalized. Thanks for your advice!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Need advice on best strategy for removing these bad links.
Heres the scenario... We recently took on a new client who's previous seo company had partaken in some dodgy link building tactics. They appear to have done some blog comment spam, very poorly. The situation we are now in is this: We have a site with an internal page deemed more important than the homepage (the homepage has 60 linking root domains and the internal page 879). It looks as though the previous seo company submitted a disavow request, theres a message in webmaster tools from a few weeks back saying it had been received, but no further correspondence. I have doubts as to whether this disavow request was done correctly... Plus im not sure that Google has issued the site a warning yet as they are ranking position one for the keyword on the internal page. Our clients want us to handle this in the correct manner, whether it be to simply ignore it and wait for Google to send a warning about the links, remove the offending internal page and leave a 404, or try to disavow the links that google doesnt know about yet from 800+ websites. Suggestions for the best practice for dealing with this situation? Any advice is much appreciated, Thanks, Hayley.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Silkstream0