What happens with a 301 redirected page?

[BeytzNet]

Hi All,

What happens with an indexed page that I 301 redirect?
Is it removed from the Google index after a while?

Thanks

[AlanMosley]

yes, there is no need to 301 indexed pages, they will find your new pages, the old ones will 404 and drop out of the index.

A 301 may be a bit quicker but a lot of bother.

But if you have links pointing to the pages, then you should 301 to redirect the link juice.

[BeytzNet]

Dear Alan,

I thought that 404 means a missing page.

However, the pages are there simply no-one pointing to them (because the item is out of stock). This is why I thought to 301 them to a similar existing item or to the category page.

Also, it happens to me a lot since I am selling unique pieces (like art pieces) so each time a product is sold the page becomes irrelevant and it may happen even to 100 pages per week. What do you recommend?

Thanks

[AlanMosley]

Ok i see,

If you were to 301 them, you will end up with a lot of 301's very quickly, why not just leave them there or delete them,

Idealy i would have the pages generated from a database, and when the are sold the page can 404.

As i said a 301 will not help you if they have no incomming links.

If you really wanted to be tricky, you could have a 404 pages that has a auto search that takes the url assuming the url has product info in it, and searches for simular products to display.