Any downsides of (permanent)redirecting 404 pages to more generic pages(category page)

[vhendriks]

Hi,

We have a site which is somewhat like e-bay, they have several categories and advertisements posted by customers/ client. These advertisements disappear over time and turn into 404 pages. We have the option to redirect the user to the corresponding category page, but we're afraid of any negative impact of this change. Are there any downsides, and is this really the best option we have?

Thanks in advance!

[MatthewBarby]

This is definitely the best thing to do. Whenever a page goes to a 404 you should be consider a redirect of some sort. I would take into consideration user experience when you're doing your redirects as a priority.

In general, when I work with e-commerce website, I will 301 redirect old product pages (now 404 pages) through to the main category pages. This provides a good user experience and any links that were pointing to that product page can be flowed into the category page (you'll be surprised how much traffic you lose from not doing this).