301 from one site to another

[Aikijeff]

I have two e-commerce websites and i'm going to remove some products from website as requested by a supplier and sell them only on one site.

Is it a good idea to 301 redirect the pages from site 1 to site 2??

Thanks for your help

[Schwaab]

I don't see any issues with that if you sell the same product on another site; however, if you want to preserve the page rank that those pages posses on their current domain you could just redirect them to a similar product or product category.

Another option would be to redirect to the page to a custom page explaining the product is no longer available.  On this page you could provide users with similar alternatives that are sold within the store and also link to the other eCommerce site if they still want a specific brand.

[Kurt_Steinbrueck]

Are they two truly different stores, as in two different companies?  If so, a redirect would seem odd to users.  If they are shopping on one site, they would expect the products listed on the site to be sold there and when they click on a link to a product they expect to stay on that site.  Breaking those expectations by listing products that that site doesn't offer and/or redirecting people to a different site would be confusing and possibly cause them to leave.

I like Schwaab's alternative suggestion.  At first put a message on the product pages indicating that the product is no longer available through that site, but that the product can be purchased on your sister site.  After while, for the sake of visitor usability/experience, I would still remove the product pages (and internal links to them) entirely from the one site that does not offer the products anymore.

Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com