How to Manage Out of Stock Product Pages for SEO

Editor’s note: This blog was primitively published successful 2016. It has been updated respective times since for accuracy and to bespeak modern practices.

When the pandemic panic-shopping of aboriginal 2020 archetypal hit, galore eCommerce businesses were unprepared for the melodramatic summation successful out-of-stock products connected their websites. 

Now, 2 years into this pandemic, proviso concatenation and shipping issues proceed to impact online retailers’ inventory, revenue, and more.

Unfortunately, these problems aren’t disappearing anytime soon — which means it’s clip for your concern to person a coagulated strategy to code them.

This usher volition assistance you bash that, offering tactics and approaches for managing your ongoing inventory issues from an SEO perspective. We’ll code the biggest mistakes we spot from retailers, arsenic good arsenic champion practices we urge to increase sales, amended out-of-stock SEO, and support blessed customers.

Looking for a paid advertizing perspective? Check retired our PPC strategies for out-of-stock items.

Table of Contents

• How Inventory & SEO Performance Interact
• Discontinued Product Page Mistakes to Avoid
  • Mistake #1: Deleting Product Pages
  • Mistake #2: Redirecting Products to the Homepage
  • Mistake #3: Doing Nothing with the Product Page
• 7 Best Practices for Managing Temporary Out-of-Stock Products
  • Enable Pre-Orders
  • Properly Label Product Page
  • Use Product Schema Markup for SERPs
  • Enable Email Notifications When Products Back successful Stock
  • Link to Related Products
  • Push Products to Bottom of Category Page
  • Apply Unavailable_After Meta Tag

How Inventory & SEO Performance Interact

Like each digital selling strategies, SEO doesn’t beryllium successful a vacuum. Publishing large contented and optimizing your merchandise pages tin lone get you truthful acold — particularly if your highly optimized merchandise pages thrust postulation to out-of-stock items.

By proactively incorporating imaginable out-of-stock issues into your merchandise leafage strategy, you tin debar losing retired connected invaluable revenue. After all, erstwhile confronted with an out-of-stock product, 60% of customers volition bargain a substitute from the aforesaid retailer (compared to the 15% who power to a competitor).

It’s each astir giving your shoppers a crushed to enactment connected the page, adjacent if a merchandise is nary longer available. By decently managing your out-of-stock products, you tin support (and grow) your integrated postulation and assistance make much income for your business.

Keep speechmaking to find retired how, oregon download our Out of Stock SEO Flowchart now.

Discontinued Product Page Mistakes to Avoid

Every eCommerce concern volition request to region a merchandise from its inventory astatine immoderate point. But galore businesses marque the mistake of either deleting the merchandise page, redirecting to their homepage, oregon leaving hundreds (or adjacent thousands!) of out-of-stock pages online without analyzing however this could payment oregon wounded their website.

Discontinued products contiguous a unsocial concern online that carnal retail stores don’t person to woody with. If a merchandise is sold retired and won’t beryllium restocked successful a carnal retail store, signs and stickers are replaced, and everyone moves on.

eCommerce website pages can’t beryllium replaced similar a sticker oregon a sign, particularly erstwhile you’ve taken large effort to optimize and get circumstantial merchandise pages indexed. Without action, customers volition proceed to onshore connected your discontinued merchandise page. It’s up to you what they bash next.

With that successful mind, present are the 3 biggest mistakes to debar with your discontinued merchandise pages.

Mistake #1: Deleting the Product Page

At first, deleting the leafage for a merchandise you’re nary longer selling sounds similar a bully idea. In fact, it sounds similar a large concern practice, due to the fact that that point is nary longer available.

But there’s a spot much to consider.

Deleting a leafage not lone ruins the wellness of your website, but it besides creates a mediocre idiosyncratic experience, which tin impact much than conscionable your SEO performance.

Ideally, each leafage connected a website is valuable. Otherwise, it would ne'er person been published successful the archetypal place. So, adjacent though a merchandise is nary longer for merchantability connected your site, there’s inactive worth assigned to that page, which influences the wide domain authorization of your website.

So, however bash you cognize which discontinued merchandise pages to support and which to delete?

We urge keeping merchandise pages that conscionable these 3 criteria:

1. Generates Organic Traffic

When a discontinued merchandise leafage generates integrated traffic, there’s a accidental you tin inactive seizure a imaginable lawsuit — arsenic agelong arsenic you connection them an alternate merchandise to buy.

You tin bash this successful 2 ways:

1. Redirect the leafage to a applicable product: Consider adding a post-redirect connection (“The merchandise you were looking for is nary longer available, but present are immoderate different products you mightiness like!”), truthful the lawsuit isn’t confused.
2. Leave the leafage up and constituent customers to different applicable products: This is the much blimpish of these approaches. If you take this option, acceptable up assisted conversion tracking (read much astir this below). If the merchandise leafage doesn’t person good with related products, see redirecting the leafage to a applicable merchandise and comparing the results.

Regardless of which enactment you choose, we urge reviewing conversions aft a play of 1–3 months. If it’s not converting, delete the archetypal page. Leaving aged pages up volition origin index bloat and could negatively impact your wide rankings.

2. Generates Revenue

You’re astir apt wondering: Exactly how could an out-of-stock merchandise leafage inactive make revenue?

The answer: Through assisted conversions. 

Assisted conversions hap erstwhile a lawsuit lands connected immoderate page, browses the site, and past buys different product. For example, a shopper whitethorn initially find your out-of-stock merchandise leafage but spot a recommended merchandise successful the sidebar. They extremity up purchasing that recommended product, and the assisted conversion is attributed to your archetypal out-of-stock merchandise page.

You tin way this information successful Google Analytics (GA).

To cheque for conversions successful GA, navigate to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. Then, acceptable the “Conversions” dropdown to eCommerce.

Set your conception to “Organic Traffic,” and acceptable the day scope to a clip play aft the merchandise went retired of stock.

If you lone person a fewer products to check, you tin simply benignant the leafage URL into the hunt box. But, if you person a batch of pages to check, export the information instead. 

Keep successful mind: GA volition lone export arsenic galore rows arsenic are shown connected the page. Showing much rows allows you to export the maximum magnitude of data.

Export the information for investigation successful Excel oregon Google Sheets.

Compare the information from the exported spreadsheet to your database of out-of-stock merchandise leafage URLs and spot if immoderate person driven revenue. 

You tin usage a vlookup successful Excel to comparison some lists much quickly. Check retired this large usher on however to usage VLOOKUP from Mikkel Sciegienny.

3. Has Backlinks from Authoritative Sources

External links are 1 of the strongest ranking factors utilized by hunt engines, and it’s hard to build links into merchandise pages. You don’t privation to suffer that worth by deleting a leafage without redirecting it. 

Use a instrumentality like Link Explorer, Ahrefs or Majestic to place immoderate existing links. If you find them, redirect the leafage to a related product. If determination is nary related product, redirect the leafage to a related category.

Keep successful caput that product-to-product redirects tin effect successful a batch of housekeeping down the line. If, for example, the caller merchandise yet gets removed from the tract arsenic well, immoderate erstwhile redirects whitethorn spell to a 404 leafage oregon whitethorn effect successful a bid of redirects.

Larger websites mightiness see redirecting to class pages instead, arsenic they thin to travel and spell overmuch little often. 

Alternatively, you could reuse the aged URL for the caller product, alternatively than redirect it. If the aged URL makes consciousness for the caller product, this is the champion enactment and saves a batch of hassle.

Mistake #2: Redirecting a Product Page to the Homepage

We commonly spot eCommerce businesses usage the “quick-fix” solution of redirecting an out-of-stock merchandise URL to their homepage. 

As acold arsenic SEO tactics are concerned, it’s not the worst strategy. But it’s not the astir perfect one, either.

This method does sphere some nexus equity, but that equity mightiness person been amended utilized benefiting a much applicable leafage of your site. 

Sending visitors to your homepage tin beryllium a jarring and frustrating experience, which mightiness suffer you a sale. Whatever SEO payment whitethorn person resulted from the redirect is often mislaid successful a antagonistic lawsuit acquisition — which, successful our opinion, isn’t a tenable trade-off.

Instead, we urge implementing a due redirect strategy for out-of-stock pages to make a amended idiosyncratic experience. It whitethorn instrumentality much time, but it’s overmuch much apt to effect successful higher conversion rates.

Mistake #3: Doing Nothing with the Product Page

Ignoring the concern helps nary one. Unfortunately, ample websites with fluctuating inventory often defer to this maneuver for fearfulness of hurting their SEO oregon losing traffic.

Leaving a monolithic magnitude of out-of-stock merchandise pages published connected your tract causes thing known arsenic index bloat. Basically, this means you person much pages connected your tract than Google is capable to crawl successful a tenable magnitude of time.

When Google spends its clip crawling pages that are not valuable to your business, it tin permission important pages connected your tract ignored by hunt crawlers. We urge keeping choky power connected each actively indexed pages to trim the fig of URLs not benefiting your online business.

7 Best Practices for Temporary Out-of-Stock Products

Not each out-of-stock merchandise is permanently discontinued. Sometimes your inventory runs retired oregon lone a circumstantial SKU sells out. 

What then? 

Your archetypal priority: Avoid a mediocre idiosyncratic acquisition (and consequent precocious bounce rate) for immoderate buyers who find your merchandise leafage via search. Too galore antagonistic interactions and engagement metrics could harm your sitewide show and outgo your concern much than if you had simply deleted the page.

We urge creating a strategy astir impermanent out-of-stock products that not lone improves your SEO but besides increases marque loyalty and imaginable revenue.

Here are immoderate of the champion practices you should consider:

1. Enable Pre-Orders for Out-of-Stock Products

Pre-orders tin beryllium added to your tract successful antithetic ways, depending connected what benignant of eCommerce platform you’re using. 

Ultimately the thought is the same: Instead of sending distant imaginable customers that onshore connected your merchandise pages, you tin alteration pre-orders to seizure that sale.

Pre-order options pass customers that immoderate orders volition beryllium sent to them astatine a aboriginal date. With that promise, you whitethorn make income you different wouldn’t person made. Pre-orders tin besides beryllium a almighty instrumentality successful lawsuit acquisition.

If you’re utilizing the Shopify platform for your eCommerce store, you tin usage an app called Pre Order Now to alteration pre-orders connected your out-of-stock merchandise pages. This volition regenerate your “Add to Cart” fastener with a “Preorder Now” button. 

2. Clearly Label the Product arsenic Temporarily Out-of-Stock

Nobody does wide markup and labeling similar Amazon. 

By evidently labeling products arsenic “unavailable,” Amazon ensures a purchaser won’t discarded clip looking astatine the merchandise listing. They’ll determination connected quickly, which reduces friction betwixt the lawsuit and the retailer.

Use the aforesaid attack connected your eCommerce site. Clearly statement your products “out of stock” connected the merchandise listing and connected the due class pages.

3. Use the Product Schema & Offer Markup

Use these 2 structured markups unneurotic for immoderate out-of-stock products. 

The merchandise and connection markups volition assistance your merchandise leafage convey the close accusation successful the hunt motor results pages (SERPs). Users volition beryllium capable to spot your ratings and whether the point is successful banal oregon not before they adjacent get to your site.

To alteration these affluent snippets for your URLs, you’ll request the following:

• Product Schema: “name” property
• Offer Markup: “price” and “priceCurrency” properties

This structured information tin besides beryllium combined with a pre-order strategy to amusement searchers connected Google that definite items are disposable for pre-order.

Try it retired yourself with Google’s Resource Page.

Need assistance implementing structured information connected your eCommerce merchandise pages? Contact america now for a escaped structured information audit and customized proposal.

4. Enable Email Notifications When Product is Available

You tin alteration your merchandise listings to seizure email addresses and notify imaginable customers erstwhile a merchandise is backmost successful stock. This allows you to support interaction with your imaginable lawsuit and marque a merchantability aboriginal on.

If you’re utilizing the BigCommerce platform for your online store, you tin alteration email notifications connected out-of-stock products by utilizing the InStock Alerts App. It volition regenerate your “Add to Cart” fastener with an email opt-in button.

5. Link to Products That are Closely Related

Remember what we said earlier astir however 60% of users that onshore connected out-of-stock merchandise pages are inactive consenting to bargain thing from the aforesaid merchant?

That’s wherefore you should guarantee each your merchandise pages — particularly the out-of-stock ones — connection recommended and akin products.

Be intentional astir the products you subordinate with these pages and way the conversions to spot however good your pages make revenue.

6. Push the Product to the Bottom of the Category Page

eCommerce platforms let you to propulsion products to little sections of your hunt and class pages. This way, you tin guarantee users don’t spot unavailable products portion they’re browsing online.

This maneuver saves you from having to delete pages oregon ruin the SEO of a merchandise leafage that volition yet travel backmost successful stock.

7. Apply the “Unavailable After” Date Meta Tag

For precise ample sites wherever it’s hard to negociate galore pages astatine once, you tin acceptable the day a leafage volition expire utilizing the “unavailable_after” meta tag erstwhile the leafage is created. This volition punctual Google to region the leafage from the scale astir a time aft the expiration date.

Consider utilizing this for constricted variation oregon constricted merchandise products that aren’t coming backmost successful stock. Base your expiration connected events similar an auction day oregon spell stale date.

Note: If you person aggregate units of each point successful stock, we bash not urge utilizing the “unavailable_after” meta tag.

Find the Right Strategy for Your Site Now

If you’re confused astir which of the strategies supra to instrumentality connected your eCommerce website, you’re not alone. Start by focusing connected 2 things:

• Giving imaginable customers the accusation they need
• Deciding which steps you’re comfy handling yourself

That volition pass precisely which champion practices and strategies you tin (and should) prioritize now. You tin ever permission the remainder up to an adept eCommerce SEO agency.

Don’t fto out-of-stock merchandise pages bring you down. Preserve your nexus equity, person much customers, and forestall indexing issues by making an educated determination astir however to grip aged merchandise pages today.

To help, we’ve make an easy-to-use flowchart that tells you precisely which steps to travel for the pages connected your site. Download it today and support it adjacent successful the uncertain months and years to come.