404 ? 301 ? What is your opinion ?

[android_lyon]

Hi,

I have a classifieds website and I am wondering about the life of a page with an ad.

An announcement has therefore a limited life, so : Is a 404 pages? a 301 redirect to the section? let the content without redirection?

What is your opinion?

Sorry for my english, i'm french

Thanks.

A.

[danatanseo]

In this instance I would create a Custom 404 page that says something like "We are sorry, this product is no longer available. Here are some helpful links to continue searching our site..."

You could also go the route that eBay uses, although it might prove to be a content management nightmare. eBay leaves up closed auctions for a really long time, but adds the message "This auction has ended."

For classified ads, I wouldn't 301 because, depending on what the item is, it could end up being misleading.

Just my thoughts! I'm interested to know what others think.

[MikeRoberts]

I agree with Dana on the Custom 404 for classifieds. A 301 could confuse people and increase bounce rate since you're not serving them what they thought they were getting. Whereas a 404 makes perfect sense given the transitory nature of a classified ad. Just make sure to let people know the product/ad/listing is no longer available and give them helpful links.

[android_lyon]

Thanks for your answer.

I'm afraid I have a lot of pages 404.

why not have a 301 redirect to the parent item or to a results page with a message indicating that the announcement sought does not exist anymore?