How to handle temporary campaign URLs

[eCommerceSEO]

Hi,

We have just run a yearly returning commercial campaign for which we have created optimized URL's. (e.g. www.domain.tld/campaign including the category and brand names after the campaign www.domain.tld./campaign/womens

This has resulted in 4500+ URL's being indexed in Google including the campaign name, now the campaign is over and these URL's do not exist anymore. How should we handle those URL's?

1.) 301 them to the correct category without the campaign name

2.) Create a static page  www.domain.tld/campaign to which we 301 all URL's that have the campaign name in them

Do you have any other suggestions on what the best approach would be? This is a yearly commercial campaign so in a year time we will have the same URL's again.

Thanks,

Chris

[jasonwdexter]

I think it wholly depends on your intentions.

If you create a static page domain.tld/campaign, what would that page be used for? Would it help any users that come to your website via that link?

I think from a user experience point of view, it would be a much smother ride for them to drop to a page that is dedicated to campaigns so they understand that the campaign they were looking for has expired.

[irvingw]

I would create a custom 404 error catcher page just for expired campaigns and 301 the expired pages to it, this way they know it's not a programming error and don't keep looking.