Discontinued Products
Products that are no longer manufactured or sold. Strategy: use 410 Gone or 301 redirect to a replacement or category.
On this page
What are discontinued productsHandling strategies410 Gone301 redirect410 vs 404Preserving contentIn brief
Discontinued products are items permanently removed from the assortment. Proper handling of such pages preserves traffic and link equity.
What are discontinued products
Products that are no longer produced. Strategy: 410 Gone or 301 redirect to a replacement/category.
Handling strategies
- Direct replacement exists → 301 to the new model
- Similar items exist → 301 to the category
- No replacement → 410 Gone
410 Gone
HTTP
HTTP/1.1 410 Gone
<!-- Page with explanation -->
Product discontinued
[Similar products]
[New models]
[Back to category]301 redirect
HTTP
# To new model
/iphone-14-pro → 301 → /iphone-15-pro
# To category (if no direct replacement)
/old-product → 301 → /category/410 vs 404
- 410 — "Gone permanently", Google deindexes faster
- 404 — "Not found", Google may keep crawling
Preserving content
If the product had significant traffic/backlinks: keep the page with 410, add content about the product, and provide links to replacements. This preserves link equity.
For temporarily out‑of‑stock products (expected to return), use 200 OK with an "out of stock" notice and offer alternatives, not 404 or 410.
FAQ
Common questions
410 is clearly better because it signals that the page is permanently gone; Google will deindex it faster without wasting crawl budget on repeated checks.
Yes, if the replacement is genuinely close and useful to the user. Do not redirect to a completely different product — it harms UX and may be seen as a soft 404.
Keep the page with a 410 status, add an explanation that the product is discontinued, and suggest alternatives. You could also keep it as an 'archive' page with 200 OK if policy allows.
Usually from a few days to a few weeks, depending on site authority and crawl frequency.
No. Canonical points to the master version, but the page remains accessible and could be indexed. For permanently removed items, use 301 or 410.
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