HTPP Status of inactive pages and website indexability.

[ArtB]

Let’s say that I have some widgets listed on the website which sometimes are active or inactive.

If the listed widget is inactive and somebody click on the link from search results page he will get a page - "There are no results that match your search. Please try another search."

The status code for this page (and probably for all inactive pages) is 200 which tells a boot that the requested URLs are valid and should be indexed.

As a result inactive pages are indexed, which in some way doesn’t help with indexability.

Question: Is it right way to do it or the page should have a different HTTP status?

Thanks

[wige]

I would respond with a 302 redirect to a page explaining that the selected widget is inactive, if the widget will become active in the near future. Otherwise, a 301 redirect to a page explaining that the widget is no longer in existence would be appropriate, or you could send a 410 Gone message and an appropriate error message.

[ArtB]

Thanks wige

Do you think that it will help with indexing rest of pages ? Additionally present inactive pages have about 40 internal links to other pages so redirecting them to one page it can hurt rankings.

[wige]

Basically instead of showing the error page (which to the ses looks like X duplicate pages) you are redirecting from X pages to one correct page. This should take the old gadgets out of the index (again, do not 301 0r 410 if the gadget is coming back) but keep your site reliable for visitors and search engines alike. Users want to know that your site is up to date and has few errors - that will help keep them coming back or keep them from leaving. Search engines want the same thing - if they see too many errors they may reduce how frequently they crawl your site.