Use 301 redirects when deleting old products?

[JeanYates]

I'm removing old products (wines)  from my site, and I've been using 301 redirects for each product page back to the winery page. My question is, am I using best practice? I want people who search for these now nonexistent products to go to the winery page where they will see what is now available. But does google approve?

I've also tried leaving the product's page intact but saying that it is no longer available and putting a link in the text that points to the winery page.

Which is better, in the eyes of the god google?

Thanks!

[SteveOllington]

Yeah your first solution, that's what always gets recommended, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't do (on here especially) if it wasn't above board... there's been a whole bunch of articles that I've seen on here though saying to go for it, which I do... and stuff on SEMPO, and a loads of other places all saying the same. I'm sure it would be all over the SEO blogs and forums by now if there were any change to that

[znotes]

Agreed. That's what we do at my company with old products

[KeriMorgret]

The only additional suggestion I'd make here is that maybe you 301 redirect to the closest current product instead of the winery page. If they're looking for a 2006 vintage and you now have the 2007 vintage, possibly redirect to the 2007 vintage.