liuyi

What to do with deleted product pages

by @liuyi (148), 1 month ago

I found a lot of deleted product pages in Google Search Console, what should I do? there are thousands

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binayjha
by @binayjha (2868), 1 month ago

Remove the cached pages manually using the Google Search Console.

liuyi
by @liuyi (148), 1 month ago

Thank you for your method. For these pages that no longer exist, will direct deletion have a greater impact on my website?

binayjha
by @binayjha (2868), 1 month ago

There will not be any negative impact on the website. Even there will be positive impact once you request the validation after fixing.

liuyi
by @liuyi (148), 1 month ago

This will be a long term task, I am trying to use this feature, but I am limited, there is a limit on the number of daily deletions

binayjha
by @binayjha (2868), 1 month ago

Explore the various options provided there. Whole category or a folder' cache can be deleted with single assignment by using the feature, remove all URLs starts with...

ms
by @ms (3259), 1 month ago

I'd say, it depends...

Are those pages old products that used to be for sale and are not available anymore? If so, chances are you are still receiving traffic on these products - people still search for them. Deleting those pages, you are getting rid of all that traffic that you could potentially convert offering new models etc.

Different scenario are products that should not be published - errors, mistakes, something that doesn't and shouldn't exist. Those pages are normally subject to removal, however, it shouldn't happen really. When you publish something by mistake and delete it in minutes/hours, Google has very-low to no chance to crawl the page.

So what kind of product pages are we talking here?

liuyi
by @liuyi (148), 1 month ago

It was an old product that was sold before, and it is no longer for sale, so I deleted those product pages, but the google search console still shows

jaap
by @jaap (1195), 1 month ago

Just deleting products is a tricky business. If they have backlinks or were indexed I always prefer a 301. Or to a related product, otherwise to the homepage.

ms
by @ms (3259), 1 month ago

You're missing out on the potential rankings and traffic your old product pages had.

As @jaap pointed out in his reply above, make that traffic and pages work for you. Either offer new(er) product/model or redirect that old product page to the old products category page, but never cut off your potential customers. It's not a great business decision. Those are people you're trying to acquire at the same time, so it makes no sense, right?

Other than that, those pages likely earned some backlinks over time.

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