404 errors is webmaster - should I 301 all pages?

[Oxfordcomma]

Currently working on a retail site that shows over 1200 404 errors coming from urls that are from products that were on the site, but have now been removed as they are seasonal/out of stock.

What is the best way of dealing with this situation ongoing? I am aware of the fact that these 404s are being marked as url errors in Google Webmaster. Should I redirect these 404s  to a more appropriate live page or should I leave them as they are and not redirect them? I am concerned that Google may give the site a penalty as these 404s are growing (as the site is a online retail store and has products removed from its page results regularly).

I thought Google was able to recognise 404s and after a set period of time would push them out of the error report.

Also is there a tool out there that on mass I can run all the 404s urls through to see their individual page strength and the number of links that point at each one?

Thanks.

[OrionGroup]

Instead of deleting a product can you instead just mark it as zero in stock / inventory? I'm not sure you still want the page to appear to visitors or not, but that might be the best way to avoid broken links. Just leave the page up and add a "not in stock" message to the page?

Otherwise, 301 redirects to an appropriate category or product might help. there might be external websites linking to some of these product pages and if you leave it as a 404, it will not pass link juice along, but if you do a 301, then the link juice can continue to follow.

Scott O.

[Oxfordcomma]

Thanks for the response. How do I manage the fact that in 4 years I may end up with a site that has over 3000  301s. Will this damage the site long term? Or is this workable (indeed is there a good period of time to remove 301s in, once they have served their purpose i.e. the redirection has been acknowledged by Google). I've heard that a large volume of 301s can influence site speed negatively and would like to avoid this and potential rank damage to the site. Any additional information would help.

Cheers

[OrionGroup]

That's a tough one to answer. In a few years, the 301 redirects might get out of hand. Perhaps just creating a good 404 page with options to view other related products might work instead.

[Oxfordcomma]

Yep, a tough one. A good 404 page will still result in the original issue i.e. mounting 404 errors being reported by Google Webmaster. So where to go with this....