How big is the problem: 404-errors as result of out of stock products?

[Digital-DMG]

We had a discussion about the importance of 404-errors as result of products which are out of stock. Of course this is not good, but what is the leverance in terms of importance: low-medium-high?

[MonicaOConnor]

Are the products discontinued or out of stock? In my opinion, the 404 errors are only detrimental to your SEO when they are in an overabundance. Relevant 404 errors are important, not just for Google, but for the searcher as well. They need to know that a product has been discontinued. If a product is just out of stock, I wouldn't 404 it at all.

This is a video by Matt Cutts on how Google handles 404 errors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oya9Pl7ukNo

[anthonydnelson]

A few questions need to be answered. Primarily:

1. Are these coming back in stock?
2. Were these popular products?

If these products are coming back in stock, this is a big problem and you need to have your team work to find a solution to have these pages maintain a 200. You could be losing your spot in the rankings every time you run out of inventory, missing out on a lot of traffic and cross-selling opportunities.

If the products are gone and not coming back, this isn't a big problem, as it is something every e-comm deals with. Having a plan to handle this is important though.

Some basic options include:

• Keep out of stock product pages active on web, serving up a 200. Be sure the content is updated clearly to show that the item is Out of Stock and it also serves up a bunch of additional, closely related alternative
• Let the removed products 404. Redirect these URLs to the parent subcategory level. This is possible for sites with a moderate amount of SKUs and low turnover.
• Let the removed products 404. Hand pick the popular products to set-up 301 redirects for to subcategory or similar product. Maintain by watching 404s in Google Webmaster Tools, looking for 404 pages in OSE/ahrefs, etc.

[Digital-DMG]

They are mostly permanently out of stock /  out of collection. Based on research and your reactions we want to 301 redirect them to the relevant category page. The number of 404 errors in webmaster tools are quite substancial.

The ones which are not permanently out of stock but temporarily unavailable we want to maintain the product page with a comment that the product will be orderable soon.