Every ecommerce store eventually faces this: a product goes out of stock, gets discontinued, or simply disappears from the catalog. What should you do with the page?
I’ve seen this question come up constantly in SEO forums and client calls. The answer isn’t straightforward because the right approach depends on several variables:
- Is the product temporarily out of stock or permanently unavailable?
- Does the page receive organic traffic?
- Are there inbound links pointing to the page?
- What development resources do you have available?
The path you choose can impact both your site’s technical SEO health and the user experience. Let’s walk through the main scenarios.
If you want to understand how to manage stock on your WooCommerce store, take a look at How to Manage Stock & Inventory in WooCommerce.
What to do with temporarily unavailable products?
If the product is temporarily out of stock and you know it will “return to the shelves” in the future, it’s advisable to keep the page live – you wouldn’t want to present a 404 error page or perform a 301 redirect since the situation is not permanent.
It’s preferable in this case to clearly inform users that the product is not available and ideally provide information about when the product will be available again. To avoid confusion, you should consider removing the “Add to Cart” button on the product page.
Google’s John Mueller has addressed this in a past Webmaster Hangout, explaining that leaving the page live with structured data marking the product as out of stock is a perfectly valid approach. Specifically, use the availability property in your Product schema with values like OutOfStock or BackOrder.
This tells Google (and Google Shopping) the product exists but isn’t available right now, so it stays indexed and can return to Shopping results quickly when restocked.
If you’re using WooCommerce, the built-in stock management already generates Product schema. Make sure it includes the availability property with the correct value – OutOfStock, BackOrder, or PreOrder – so Google Shopping displays the right status in search results.
Keep in mind that users landing on an unavailable product page will likely leave quickly, which hurts your engagement metrics. There are several things you can do to keep these visitors on your site:
- Displaying similar or related products.
- Providing a convenient search option.
- Offering sign-up and email notifications when the product becomes available again.
For more strategies, check out 10 ways to reduce bounce rate and increase conversions.
What about products that are permanently unavailable?
There are several options for products that are permanently gone. The simplest is to return a 404 error (or better yet, a 410 Gone status). A 410 explicitly tells search engines the page was intentionally removed, which helps Google deindex it faster than a standard 404.
Matt Cutts supported the 404 approach for average-sized stores in this video:
The video is from an earlier era of Google, but the principle still holds. If the product won’t return, there’s no reason to keep the page live and frustrate users who land on it expecting to buy something.
That said, your 404 error page should be useful. Instead of a dead end, show similar products the user might want. A smart 404 page turns a negative experience into a chance to retain the visitor.
When to avoid showing a 404 error for unavailable products?
Before you start showing 404 errors across the board, consider the drawbacks:
A large number of 404 pages can waste your crawl budget. Google’s bot will spend time crawling dead pages instead of your actual content.
More importantly, check whether the page receives organic traffic or has quality inbound links. Returning a 404 means losing the link equity those backlinks earned for your site.
Before removing any product page, run a quick backlink check using Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console. If the URL has quality inbound links, a 301 redirect preserves that link equity. Skipping this step is one of the most common SEO mistakes in ecommerce.
To understand the difference between inbound links, outbound links, and internal links, you can read a post about the value of outbound links for SEO.
Inbound links remain one of the strongest ranking signals and a core part of how Google evaluates E-E-A-T and authority. You’ll want to do everything you can to preserve those pointing to your site.
So what do you do with a product that won’t return but has valuable backlinks? You probably don’t want the page live, and a 404 wastes the link equity. The answer is a redirect – more on that next.
What about products that aren’t available but hold SEO value?
If a product page has SEO value – organic traffic, quality inbound links, or both – you should perform a 301 redirect to preserve that value.
Before removing any product page, use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console to check if the URL has relevant backlinks.
The quantity of inbound links shown in this image is exaggerated – but I assume you get my point.
If this is the situation, redirect to the nearest relevant product or category page. Avoid redirecting to another product that might also be removed later – that creates redirect chains.
Redirecting to the sub-category page (if it exists) is usually the safest choice. Category pages rarely get removed.
If possible, display a brief message explaining the redirect. Being sent to another page without context is frustrating for users.
Provide the user with a message stating that the product is out of stock and no longer available for sale, and explain that they might find interesting and relevant products on the category page to which they have been directed.
When to Avoid 301 Redirects for Sold-Out Products?
Your approach should also depend on your business and customers. Even if a product is no longer sold, visitors may still want to read its specifications or user guides.
Redirecting removes access to that content. If the page still has useful information, consider keeping it live with a clear “no longer available” message – the same approach as temporarily unavailable products.
FAQs
OutOfStock structured data. If it's permanently discontinued, check for backlinks and organic traffic before removing it. Deleting a page with valuable inbound links wastes link equity that took time to build.availability property in your Product schema. Set it to https://schema.org/OutOfStock for unavailable items, https://schema.org/BackOrder if you're still accepting orders, or https://schema.org/PreOrder for upcoming products. This helps Google and Google Shopping display the correct status in search results.404 means "not found" - the page might come back. A 410 means "gone" - the page was intentionally removed and won't return. Google treats 410 as a stronger signal to deindex the URL faster. For permanently discontinued products, 410 is the better choice.Decision Tree: What to Do with Unavailable Products
Use this flowchart to quickly determine the right approach for any product page:
Show “out of stock” message. Add
OutOfStock structured data. Display related products. Remove the “Add to Cart” button.Continue below
Redirect to the most relevant category or sub-category page to preserve link equity.
Continue below
Display “discontinued” message. Keep the content for reference visitors. Do not use 404 or 410.
Let the page expire. Use 410 (Gone) to speed up deindexing.
In Summary
For temporarily out-of-stock products, keep the page live with a clear message and structured data marking the product as unavailable. Show related products or let users subscribe for restock notifications.
For permanently discontinued products, check the page’s SEO value first. If there are quality backlinks or organic traffic, do a 301 redirect to the closest category page. If the page has no SEO value but still contains useful content (specs, guides), keep it live with a “discontinued” notice. Otherwise, a 404 or 410 response is fine.
The key takeaway: don’t remove product pages blindly. A quick backlink check takes a minute and can save you months of lost rankings.
Comments and questions are welcome – always happy to hear how others handle this 🙂
