Re-Direct or 410

[Palmbourne]

We have an ecommerce site. If we have a product that is not going to be available again and the url of the product is not in the Google index should we re-direct it to a category page or do a 410?

Thank you as always in advance.

[TimHolmes]

Have you considered leaving the product page in place for people still searching for the item.

Providing you clearly state it is no longer for sale, you could have some similar product cross sells. That way you still have a bite at the apple when customer land looking for these products from search engines. This could be beneficial especially if it was a popular product.

[CommT]

Sounds good, but the page isn't in the index...

John - I would redirect, but the I'm a belt and braces kind of person.

[Palmbourne]

Thank you for your reply. I will go with your advice.

[Palmbourne]

Thank you for the advice. I am not keen on leaving pages with no products to offer as I do feel it may annoy customers.