Closed Location Pages - 301 to open locations?

[Andrew_Mac]

I work with several thousand local businesses and have a listing page for each on my site. Recently a large chunk of these locations closed, and a number of these pages rank well for localized keywords. I'm trying to figure out the best course of action.
What I've done so far is make a note on each of the closed location pages that says something to the effect of "This location is currently closed. Here are some nearby options" and provide links to the location pages of 3 open places nearby. The closed location pages are continuing to rank well, but conversion rates from visitors landing on these pages has dropped.

What I'm considering doing is 301ing these pages to the nearest open location page. I'm hoping this will preserve the ranking of the page for keywords for which the nearby location is still relevant, while not hurting user experience by serving up a closed location.

I'm also thinking of, as a second step, creating new pages (with slightly altered URLs) for the closed listings. They won't rank as well obviously, but if someone searches for the address or even the street of the closed location, my hope is that I could still capture some of that traffic and hope to convert it through someone clicking through to an open location from there. I spoke with someone about this second step and he thought it sounded spammy. My thinking is, combined with the 301, I'm telling Google that the page it is currently ranking well no longer has the importance it once did and that the page I'm 301ing to does, but that the content on the page I'm creating for the closed location still has enough value to justify the newly created page.

I'd really appreciate thoughts from the community on this. Thanks!

[Topster_87SEO]

Hi Andrew,

Its tricky I can see your option might seem like the ideal route. However what if that location suddenly becomes active again? It seems a waste to 301 redirect it then create a new URL later, also you end up creating more work for yourself doing it this way. What I'd do is keep the location pages open and keep doing what you've been doing e.g. linking to other closely related locations. Another thing to consider is the redirected URL might stop in the SERPS for a while, even though you've redirected them!

[BradsDeals]

So, you're redirecting B-town to A-ville. If A-ville services the area formerly served by B-town, then I think a 301 would be fine, especially if A-ville's page mentions that they service B-town. I'd even see that as helpful from a UX perspective.

Otherwise, I'd probably 301 B-town to your main locations page. I agree with whoever said your proposed "second step" sounds spammy. You'll lose traction in those neighborhoods, sure, but I have to ask, if the locations were closed, how valuable were they, really? Is it enough to make risking a penalty worthwhile?

[Andrew_Mac]

Thanks for the response, Rebecca. I'm afraid I was unclear. I'm looking at redirecting one business listing to another. (Both service A-ville.) So Joe's Widgets and Janet's Widgets both serve southeast San Diego, but Joe's Widgets closed. However, Joe's Widgets ranks well for terms like "widgets in southeast San Diego". My hope is that by 301ing Joe's listing page to Janet's listing page, her location will be given the authority for that keyword that Joe's now possesses.

[Andrew_Mac]

Thanks so much, Topster! The biggest issue is that the closed locations are the some of the oldest ones on my site and, by no coincidence, the best ranking. Any ideas outside of what I'm doing thus far to try to get my newer (still open) locations to supplant the older (closed) ones on the first page?

[BradsDeals]

Okay, so that depends on why Joe was ranking well for widgets in the first place. If it was links, then a 301 will pass the link equity on to Janet. If it was the content, then you can move the content from Joe's page to Janet's and it should hold up since Joe's page won't exist anymore to be duplicate. If it was the business address, then that may pose a problem since location can be tricky as I understand it. I'm not a local SEO expert, so someone else should weigh in on that piece of it.

[Topster_87SEO]

In response to you and to add to Rebecca's response it will be a mixture of backlinks and content. Simply migrating content and 301'ing isn't enough sometimes. One thing to remember when 301'ing not all link juice is passed to the new page. I would reach out to whoever was linking to the now closed location and get them to link to the new location. From the new location I would link back to the other page or if the closed location is now redundant I'd 301 to new page. You need to always ask yourself this question before redirecting is the page likely to be used again? This method isn't always easy because you can't always control who links to x page but its best practice.