6 replies to this topic

[alohame]

We have around 1,000 products and around 100 of them discontinued. if i remove those products search engine will go to 404 page not found. Will this effect our google rankings in any way.

Thanks

[1dmf]

It might, did the pages when these products showed have internal links on them? Is there a way you can 301 redirect these products until you can confirm the SE has reindexed your page and correctly dropped the unwanted pages from the index?

[Jill]

We have around 1,000 products and around 100 of them discontinued. if i remove those products search engine will go to 404 page not found. Will this effect our google rankings in any way.

Yes, if those pages used to show up in the search results when people were seeking the products contained on them, they will no longer show up.

[1dmf]

- Jill you have a wonderful nack for stating the obvious.

If those pages were returned in the index and they no longer exist, then searches which found those pages will no longer return those pages in the SERPs.

Do you work hard at being a genius Jill or is it a gift?

[alohame]

When I remove these 100 odd products there will be no broken links as they will be disabled and no links will show up in the site pointing these products. The only thing if they come through search engine they will see 404 pages. that's it.

When I asked, will it effect my ranking I meant my general ranking Jill . I read somewhere that if you delete a lot of pages from your site google doesn't like it.

[Jill]

When I asked, will it effect my ranking I meant my general ranking Jill

There's no such thing as a "general ranking."

You rank for specific keyword phrases, or you don't. You won't rank for those particular ones anymore, as I previously stated.

The only thing if they come through search engine they will see 404 pages. that's it.

That's poor practice and not a smart thing to do. You should 301-redirect those pages to something else on your site that's the most appropriate for them.

[Mooro]

I've just undertaken a rewrite and redesign and part of this was dropping some old products and adding new ones.

I made the new site 301 where we had a new product that matched the old product and when there's no match it returns a 301 through to the closest matching category.

It's the most graceful solution I could find that didn't result in loads of 404s.