Outdated content - best practice?

Which option is better?

[ChristianDK1]

We run a service company that recently decided to abandon one of our main services. This service (section of the website) has quite a bit of traffic and inbound links from other sites. The section/service has several local pages (ranking for local searches of course) and more generic pages (ranking for more generic search terms). I am unsure of what the best solution is, so I hope to hear from you guys here:

1) 301redirect all pages to front page
2) 301redirect all pages to equivalent pages (both local and category-pages) within a similar service segment (but sill not a close segment - hairdressing vs massage)
3) Keep the pages, remove the booking functionality, and create a message that we "no longer offers this service..." and link to the equivalent pages in different segment
4) Is there a 4th option?

[phranque]

welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com], ChristianDK1!

i would suggest #3 is the best option.

[tangor]

#3

Also include a link to your services listing to have one more chance to keep the visitor on site.

[lucy24]

1) 301 redirect all pages to front page

Noooooo. Bite your tongue. Don’t even think it.

[ChristianDK1]

Hi Lucy24
Why not option no. 1? What is "so" wrong with it?

[not2easy]

Why not "301redirect all pages to front page"?
If visitors have clicked on search results for a specific topic and end up on a loosely related front page, you will suddenly notice drastic traffic loss because Google expects that they are delivering visitors to the same page that they are showing in their results, not some other page. Visitors' increased use of the Back button returning to search for what they wanted will set off alarms at Google regarding your site. It is site suicide on a fast track.

Think of it like a restaurant serving soup to people who ordered fish. How long would they be in business?

[ChristianDK1]

not2easy - well, the thing is - we ARE not offering these services any longer, so even though we want the traffic - it is low quality (because they don't find what they are searching for). But we want to - if we can - convert them to users of our other services. But in the same time we want to apply Google's best practices/follow their guidelines.

[not2easy]

When a page does not exist, it is OK to redirect to a page made to explain and expand, but not good to send visitors to the home page with no idea what happened. Overall, when a page does not exist, it is better to have a 410 (Gone) response than to redirect but an explanation page is preferable to an existing page that no one asked to visit. Google considers that a soft 404 which is worse than a plain old 404.

Of the options you mentioned, #3 is the best option as others have suggested.

[engine]

I would also support option 3. Make sure the pages are correctly updated so that visitors see it's no longer available without them having to chase to find the information.

I'd also add an additional option you could consider which includes adding Google AdSense, or some other sponsorship to those pages. </i'll get my coat>

[ChristianDK1]

So if I choose option 3 then I will still keep all the ingoing links, right?

[engine]

That's down to the organisation linking to you. They may not change anything for a long time.

[ChristianDK1]

Thank you, and sorry, but I actually meant the linkjuice (assuming that the organisations keep on linking)

[engine]

Assuming all things remain equal, it should remain stable, until the next Google update, or a full crawl drops out the other incoming links, for whatever reason.

Nothing is 100% certain.

Google's John Mueller mentioned "link juice" the other day.

Anything that talks about "link juice" should be ignored. Go and make awesome websites with content that's useful & inspriational to real people.

[twitter.com...]

That final sentence is important.

[lucy24]

Why not "301redirect all pages to front page"?

Think of the humans. If you go to a particular page--whether from a SERP or a bookmark or a link you found somewhere--and you end up instead on the site's front page, you have no idea what happened. Did you misspell the URL? Is the page gone? Is the site under new management?

If, on the other hand, your request receives a 404 or 410, you can look at the originally requested URL in your address bar and verify that you went where you meant to go--or, in the alternative, you will see that you made an obvious mistake. (For example, if it was an auto-generated link from a forum, a trailing bit of punctuation might have sneaked in.) And then, once you've confirmed that you did nothing wrong, if it's a competently coded site you will be given some clue about where to find what you're looking for.

[tangor]

Thank you, and sorry, but I actually meant the linkjuice (assuming that the organisations keep on linking)

Link juice kind of disappeared a few years ago---abused terribly and greatly demoted in the ranking factors used these days.

OUTDATED pages can have value if they actually answer questions. If it is a product page that does not provide information other than price, shipping and color/size, then yes, that should go to a 410, but use a custom 410 which states:

"Page is removed as outdated, or the Product is no longer available. Search our site for similar product (link to category page)"

You can use the same for a custom 404 as well. Both will keep the user ON SITE for at least one more click without confusing or, worse, pissing them off. G will love you as you are not serving soft 404s (kiss of death). By using 410 you will EVENTUALLY clean out their past indexing, though they will ask for those pages for decades (I speak from experience).

Forget link juice. It is not a panacea one can count on, and really hasn't had much impact since 2004.

[tangor]

And yet ... sometimes outdated pages HAVE VALUE if well-constructed, contain user desired information and can answer questions.

JUST INCLUDE a statement the widget is not longer available, but we do offer similar products HERE (link to a category or product page). These will be unique to each of the outdated pages ... and it is well worth the effort to do the work ... and IF anyone has linked to the old page, that link will still exist---with the possibility you can then direct the visitor to the CURRENT offering (product or info, etc.).

Just don't GAME the system! G knows all and will deprecate any site that does not play fair or by the rules.

[ChristianDK1]

Thank you all for yur very valuable input. I willgo with option 3.