tomajacar - 5:57 pm on Sep 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

"Are you sure its returning a 200?"

yes... he's got 40 000 records of the same page in Gg. he leaves all dynamic metas on and just replace the content of the page with a "no longer available" message and all his nav and ads around.
Therefore users can still navigate away from the site (not very user friendly though), and he still gets impressions on his ads (evil)

i guess that's one benefit then...

As per 410 vs 301, it's true that 410 seems to be closer to what the page actually is (which is why I say ethic).
Now as a user, I'd rather be taken to a page of relevant and similar results (easy in my case)
What I am thinking of doing now is returning a 301 and send to the category result page.
I'll check the referrer, and if it comes from an expired ad, I'll display a user friendly message to explain.
(I've changed my opinion too many times today and it start spinning)