Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Best way to handle expired ad in a classified

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Best way to handle expired ad in a classified

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    3
    6
    4779
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • mirum_agency
      mirum_agency last edited by

      I don't think there is a definitive answer to this, but worth the discussion:

      How to handle an expired ad in a classified / auction site?

      Michael Gray mentioned you should 301 it to it's category page, and I'm inclined to agree with him. But some analysts say you should return a "product/ad expired" page with a 404.

      For the user I think the 404 aproach is best, but from a SEO perspective that means I'm throwing link juice out.

      What if I 301 him from the ad, and show a message saying why they're seeing the listing page instead of the product page?

      Thoughts?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EGOL
        EGOL @mirum_agency last edited by

        I would do #3.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • mirum_agency
          mirum_agency @EGOL last edited by

          Great inputs!

          But what if, for legal reasons (price, pictures, etc), the ad has to be removed after it has expired. (real case here)

          Ideas:

          1. Modify the ad page and return a 200? (remove ad data and add a message saying it's expired)
          2. Throw a friendly 404 page, saying the ad has expired and show other options for the user to navigate to
          3. 301 to it's parent page

          (3) is my favourite, but (2) may be the best option for users.

          Thoughts? 🙂

          EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • EGOL
            EGOL @MarieHaynes last edited by

            Interesting...

            I don't know how "private" selling prices are in your area but maybe a couple pages on your site like thiese.....

            WHAT YOU CAN BUY IN YOURCITY FOR $100,000

            This would be a point of reference for buyers and sellers.  Where I live there is a huge divergence between askin' and sellin' prices.  They ask for the moon but get something a lot less.

            RECENT SALES PRICES IN YOURCITY...

            Nosy people would love this.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • MarieHaynes
              MarieHaynes @EGOL last edited by

              I do the same thing with our real estate site.  If a listing has expired, I keep the page active, but I put a note at the top saying, "This listing has sold!  Contact us and we can find you similar listings in the city."

              My expired listings bring in a lot of search traffic.

              EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • EGOL
                EGOL last edited by

                Who is going to bet against Michael Gray?  I think that you should listen to him.

                I would give his answer one tweak.  He says....

                If the product goes out of stock forever, you have a couple choices. You can leave the page up with a discontinued notice on the page. IMHO that’s not the best way to go for search engines. Ideally I’d like to not lose any link equity and 301 the product page to a similar product, category/department page, or home page.

                I would do exactly what he says 99% of the time, however, if that page is pulling a lot of search engine traffic and same manufacturer has a replacement product or something close that substitutes, I would leave that page in place and use it to explain...  "This product has been retired but a new and improved widget is available... (then give the sales pitch for the new model with a buy button).  This approach would be especially valuable if the product is something like running shoes where repeat customers with very high loyalty are looking to replace their favorite shoes up to several times per year.

                When this shoe was replaced by Addiction there was a mad scramble to buy up all existing stock...  (I am probably only person posting here old enough to have worn out a couple dozen pairs)

                MarieHaynes mirum_agency 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                Browse Questions

                Explore more categories

                • Moz Tools

                  Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                • SEO Tactics

                  Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                • Community

                  Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                • Digital Marketing

                  Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                • Research & Trends

                  Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                • Support

                  Connect on product support and feature requests.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • David_Fisher

                  Best practices for retiring 100s of blog posts?

                  redirects blog post backlinks blog post 404s

                  Hi. I wanted to get best practices for retiring an enterprise blog with hundreds of old posts with subject matter that won't be repurposed. What would be the best course of action to retire and maintain the value of any SEO authority from those old blog pages? Is it enough to move those old posts into an archive subdirectory and Google would deprioritize those posts over time? Or would a mass redirect of old blog posts to the new blog's home page be allowed (even though the old blog post content isn't being specifically replaced)? Or would Google basically say that if there aren't 1:1 replacement URLs, that would be seen as soft-404s and treated like a 404?

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David_Fisher
                  0
                • JimJ

                  What is the best strategy to SEO Discontinued Products on Ecommerce Sites?

                  RebelsMarket.com is a marketplace for alternative fashion. We have hundreds of sellers who have listed thousands of products. Over 90% of the items do not generate any sales;  and about 40% of the products have been on the website for over 3+ years. We want to cleanup the catalog and remove all the old listings  that older than 2years that do not generate any sales.  What is the best practice for removing thousands of listings  an Ecommerce site? do we 404 these products and show similar items? Your help and thoughts is much appreciated.

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JimJ
                  3
                • Matthew_Edgar

                  Hiding ad code from bots

                  Hi. I have a client who is about to deploy ads on their site. To avoid bots clicking on those ads and skewing data, the company would like to prevent any bots from seeing any ads and, of course, that includes Googlebot. This seems like it could be cloaking and I'd rather not have a different version of the sites for bots. However, knowing that this will likely happen, I'm wondering how big of a problem it could be if they do this. This change isn't done to manipulate Googlebot's understanding of the page (ads don't affect rankings, etc.) and it will only be a very minimal impact on the page overall. So, if they go down this road and hide ads from bots, I'm trying to determine how big of a risk this could be. I found some old articles discussing this with some suggesting it was a problem and others saying it might be okay in some cases (links below). But I couldn't find any recent articles about this. Wondering if anybody has seen anything new or has a new perspective to share on this issue? Is it a problem if all bots (including Googlebot) are unable to see ads? https://moz.rankious.com/_moz/blog/white-hat-cloaking-it-exists-its-permitted-its-useful
                  https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4535445.htm
                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBO-1ETf_dY

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Matthew_Edgar
                  0
                • IsaCleanse

                  Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain

                  Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
                  www.domainname.com.au/MY
                  domainname.com.au/malaysia
                  malaysia.domainname.com.au
                  my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
                  0
                • VelasquezEF

                  Best Location to find High Page Authority/ Domain Authority Expired Domains?

                  Hi, I've been looking online for the best locations to purchase expired domains with existing Page Authority/ Domain Authority attached to them. So far I've found: http://www.expireddomains.net
                  http://www.domainauthoritylinks.com
                  http://moonsy.com/expired_domains/ These site's are great but I'm wondering if I'm potentially missing other locations? Any other recommendations? Thanks.

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | VelasquezEF
                  1
                • Sir

                  Why does expired domains still work for SEO?

                  Hi everyone I’ve been doing an experiment during more than 1 year to try to see if its possible to buy expired domains. I know its considered black hat, but like I said, I wanted to experiment, that is what SEO is about. What I did was to buy domains that just expired, immediately added content on a WP setup, filled it with relevant content to the expired domain and then started building links to other relevant sites from these domains.( Here is a pretty good post on how to do, and I did it in a similar way. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2297718/How-to-Build-Links-Using-Expired-Domains ) This is nothing new and SEO:s has been doing it for along time. There is a lot of rumors around the SEO world that the domains becomes worthless after they expire. But after trying it out during more than 1 year and with about 50 different expired domains I can conclude that it DOES work, 100% of the time. Some of the domains are of course better than others, but I cannot see any signs of the expired domains or the sites i link to has been punished by Google. The sites im liking to ranks great ONLY with those links 🙂 So to the question: WHY does Google allow this? They should be able to see that a domain has been expired right? And if its expired, why dont they just “delete” all the links to that domain after the expiry date? Google is well aware of this problem so what is stopping them? Is there any one here that know how this works technically?

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Sir
                  0
                • Ryguy87

                  Are expired domains for Godaddy backlinks already reset by googel ?

                  When does Google actual reset backlinks to a domain. If i am buying expired domains from godaddy action for linking purpose am i wasting my time.Also if that the case whats the point of buying expired domains with many links pointing to them. If the backlinks to the expired domain still show up under my Google webmaster tool window does that mean Google counts that link?

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ryguy87
                  0
                • patrickmilligan

                  Title Tag - Best Practices

                  I'm pretty new to seo but think I'm starting to get a decent grasp on it. One thing I'm really struggling with is how to organize the meta title tags on my website. I work in real estate and I'm noticing a lot of my local competitors that are ranking for the top keywords seem to using that particular keyword on every title tag within their website. An example would be www.paranych.com. Many of his internal pages have the word "Edmonton Real Estate" in the meta title tag, yet his home page is the page that is ranking for that particular keyword. It doesn't seem logical to have every one of my pages featuring the same keyword, but there are many examples within my industry of this working. Is the best practice with meta title tags to have your keyword on every title tag of your site or just the home page? Thx, Barry

                  White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | patrickmilligan
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.