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I've talked to the support team about this several times to try to figure out the best practices, but thought I'd post here what I've learned and see if anyone here has a better procedure.
I'll start by saying that if a product is discontinued, it's bad SEO practice to simply delete it. You should redirect it to (ideally) a comparable product or (secondarily) to the product's category. That way, if the product page has any sort of PageRank or backlinks, they'll be passed on to the new page at least somewhat. Obviously this is a good thing to do for customer usability as well.
Sometimes you need to actually announce on the page that the product is disc. and link to other options, in which case none of this applies, but for the generic disc. product this is what I've figured out:
1. On the product, check "Not for Sale" and "Non-Searchable."
2. Delete the product's category or categories. Otherwise they do still show up in the category as a thumbnail and when they're clicked on, they go to the redirect. Confusing for the customer.
3. Go to the Meta tab and input a redirect link. Important: If you use the SEO tools under "Marketing > SEO Tools > Edit Page Redirect you must only put the url that comes AFTER your store name and slash (e.g. don't put http://www.yourstore.com/product.asp?itemid=12345 but instead only put product.asp?itemid=12345). HOWEVER, in the redirect on the product page, you must put the full url including the http://.
4. Here's where it gets sticky. The product will still show up in your Product Index, because you haven't checked the "Hide" box. If you check the "Hide" box, the product won't show up in the Product Index. But then it won't redirect, either.
So you have to make the choice: do you want the redirect/SEO benefit, or do you want a clean product index?
Related: I started putting DISCONTINUED in all caps in front of the product title so it would be obvious to anyone in the back end that the product wasn't to be used for anything (this is helpful for customer service reps when they're in there, for price updates, etc.; you can download everything and filter out the DISCONTINUED items pretty fast). But then they showed up in the product index just like that. Not cool!
Product Index, page 2
I'm still talking to support about that one. Ideally, they would allow a HIDE item to still have a redirect and all of this would be solved. Or they could add a DISCONTINUED button to the products that's programmed to be hidden from the front end, but still redirect. I'll post back if I hear more, but in the meantime, this is what I'm doing.
Anyone have other ideas?
I'll start by saying that if a product is discontinued, it's bad SEO practice to simply delete it. You should redirect it to (ideally) a comparable product or (secondarily) to the product's category. That way, if the product page has any sort of PageRank or backlinks, they'll be passed on to the new page at least somewhat. Obviously this is a good thing to do for customer usability as well.
Sometimes you need to actually announce on the page that the product is disc. and link to other options, in which case none of this applies, but for the generic disc. product this is what I've figured out:
1. On the product, check "Not for Sale" and "Non-Searchable."
2. Delete the product's category or categories. Otherwise they do still show up in the category as a thumbnail and when they're clicked on, they go to the redirect. Confusing for the customer.
3. Go to the Meta tab and input a redirect link. Important: If you use the SEO tools under "Marketing > SEO Tools > Edit Page Redirect you must only put the url that comes AFTER your store name and slash (e.g. don't put http://www.yourstore.com/product.asp?itemid=12345 but instead only put product.asp?itemid=12345). HOWEVER, in the redirect on the product page, you must put the full url including the http://.
4. Here's where it gets sticky. The product will still show up in your Product Index, because you haven't checked the "Hide" box. If you check the "Hide" box, the product won't show up in the Product Index. But then it won't redirect, either.
So you have to make the choice: do you want the redirect/SEO benefit, or do you want a clean product index?
Related: I started putting DISCONTINUED in all caps in front of the product title so it would be obvious to anyone in the back end that the product wasn't to be used for anything (this is helpful for customer service reps when they're in there, for price updates, etc.; you can download everything and filter out the DISCONTINUED items pretty fast). But then they showed up in the product index just like that. Not cool!
Product Index, page 2
I'm still talking to support about that one. Ideally, they would allow a HIDE item to still have a redirect and all of this would be solved. Or they could add a DISCONTINUED button to the products that's programmed to be hidden from the front end, but still redirect. I'll post back if I hear more, but in the meantime, this is what I'm doing.
Anyone have other ideas?
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