301 or 302 or leave at 410

[BeanstalkIM]

I have a client who manages vacation rental properties and those properties get links. If an owner pulls their property off the rental market the current status given is a 410 which I instinctively want turned into a 301. The problem is, often those properties come back online with the same URL so the question is, when a 301 is turned into a 200 - has anyone noticed a significant delay in time for that page to rank?I know technically it should probably be a 410 or maybe a 302 but ... you know ... the link weight.

[MattAntonino]

You probably don't want to be going 200 > 301 > 200 too often. Although it may work and may rank again, once you 301 by definition that's a "permanent" redirect. Especially since the property could then go off again ... 200 > 301 > 200 > 301 > 200 ... and somewhere in there, all is lost.

I would make these 302 links. First, if it's 302 long enough, the goodness will pass through the 302 anyways. I don't know if this is 90 days, 180 days or something really unexpected like 102 days ... but eventually it does pass through (same if you 302 a bad domain to your main domain, the penalties will eventually pass through.)

But a 302 would serve you as a temporary redirect, keep the juice on the referring page (unless it never comes back) and then either long term rank the original URL or pass the juice.

[4RS_John]

For more on 301s, read "301 Redirects: The Horror That Cannot Be Uncached." It's not quite true that they can't be uncached, but it's incredibly difficult to do so. From a UI standpoint, if someone has a cottage they like, and has bookmarked the URL, then one day they visit the URL and get a 301, their browser will cache that 301 for months, even if the URL comes back and starts returning a 200 with content.

[BeanstalkIM]

Followup.

I'm not sure if it's possible, will check tomorrow but if we can keep the page up with a "property no longer available" notice and a canonical to an appropriate category page and put it live if the property is re-added ... what do you think?

Not sure why I didn't think of that out of the gate.

[ecommerceclarity]

Hi Dave,

301 means that the page has been moved permanently.  I suspect the search engines take specific actions upon seeing a 301 for a short period of time.

A 410 - means that the page is gone, and gone forever.  And a 404 means that the page is temporarily unavailable.

In your case, I think I'd want to setup a process where for 3-7 days, you return a simple 404.  I.e. the page is temporarily unavailable.  If during those 3-7 days, the page comes back up - start serving it per normal.

If after 3-7 days, the page is still not up, I'd serve up a custom 410 page that offers alternatives that can be clicked through to if the customer/property owner did not list again.  If he ever DOES list again, I'd be sure to 301 to the new page, regardless of time delay.

There may also be some thought to allowing pages to display in a historical sense.  I.e. - this is what the page you want looked like - but it's no longer available.  Thus preserving some of the traffic, which you might find some use for.

Finally - some possible ideas for "missing pages"

1. Present other properties very close to the missing property
2. Communicate with your viewer what is happening.  i.e. - the listing agent/owner removed the listing - but over XX% of properties delisted come back within 10 days!  Please check back - would you like us to email you if this property comes back online? (collect email opportunity!)
3. Present a historical page showing what the listing used to look like. (legal issues?)
4. Display a 404 page - but provide other interesting information/content.  i.e. since you know what the old page was like - you probably can figure out related/highly related content to present in it's stead.

Hope this helps
Kevin