404's and duplicate content.

[AnthonyLasVegas]

I have real estate based websites that add new pages when new listings are added to the market and then deletes pages when the property is sold. My concern is that there are a significant amount of 404's created and the listing pages that are added are going to be the same as others in my market who use the same IDX provider.

I can go with a different IDX provider that uses IFrame which doesn't create new pages but I used a IFrame  before and my time on site was 3min w/ 2.5 pgs per visit and now it's 7.5 pg/visit with 6+min on the site.

The new pages create new content daily so is fresh content and better on site metrics (with the 404's) better or less 404's, no dup content and shorter onsite metrics better?

Any thoughts on this issue? Any advice would be appreciated

[Aran_Smithson]

I would possibly look towards a different strategy.

Rather than deleting a page once a product is sold I would leave the page live for a while and put a sold sign on it and offer a selection of similar properties to view. After say 3 months then 301 the page back to a category page higher in the hierarchy. Or don't 301 it at all, perhaps Noindex the page after a given time frame?

I'd much rather present my visitors with a Sold sign and a list of similar properties than potentially lose them to a 404.

Don't think search engine, think visitor

Hope that helps

Aran

[LoveFitness]

I think what Aran has suggested is great. You don't want to 404 the sold property pages as if it has been a popular property page and has accumaled links and PA, then by 404'ing that page you would lose all that value.

By doing a 301 redirect to a category page you will pass most of that value on, however you wont pass on the anchor text value and by doing  this it will also tell the search engines to disregard that page in future so it shouldn't appear in the search, this can take a while.

[AnthonyLasVegas]

Thank you for the reply, the problem is it's done automatically. There are 100's of new listings/pages added to the LV Real Estate Market weekly. The IDX program automatically adds properties when they come to market and deletes them when they go into sold status.

My site is www.mylvcondosales.com

I did notice that Realtor.com and Yahoo Real Estate have the same IDX page adding process.

[AnthonyLasVegas]

Thanks for the reply.