How to properly remove indexed products

After seeing what my visitors are searching for in my store, I have decided to change my angle of attack.

The products in my store are already indexed in Google, how can I remove them properly - without displaying 404 errors to searchers?

Do I really need to redirect all 200+ products manually?

Thanks!

 

I guess you want to remove those 200+ products which are not getting any traffic, right? But I don't understand the requirement of removing your product pages? You can always give priority to some products (that is what you said changing angle of attach).

The best logical solution is --- Redesign your website by implementing your new angle of attach. If it is not required then putting (showing) best sellers on prominent places will do your work. Remember, there might be someone who need your ignored products.

And if you are asking just for technical aspect of removing 200+ pages without showing 404 page then the answer lies in the .htaccess file. An expert is required here. The code of .htaccess file will depend on your current url structure. To deindex those pages from Google, you can always ask google to do so in webmaster tool.

I suggest you.. not of remove your ignored products, use those pages to provide backlinks to your best seller products. inner links are really valuable to increase the rank in google (but most people don't see it)

 

Actually I am wanting to work with a specific merchant and part of the contract is that he will be our sole vendor. So I need to remove these products without getting penalized from Google

 

Okay. First thing... removing your pages and showing 404 error pages are not going to penalize in google, but yes.. they should not be like that.

You can do it in 2 simple steps --
(1) Simply remove unwanted pages from your website and use Google webmaster tool (search console) to remove them. Within 2-3 days all unwanted pages will be removed from google index.
(2) To handle backlinks to those removed pages & any traffic coming from links or referrals, you need to make 404 page which do show the alternate products (of current vendor). There is no need to worry on having 404 page.

Let me know if any further query you may have.

 

I've done a large number of redirects using an Excel spreadsheet. If you can export the URLs to your products, paste them into a column in Excel and strip out the beginning of your website so you have a column of just /your-product-urls/291938492 - this should be in column B.

Put Redirect 301 (with a space at the end) and copy/paste it down column A.

Add a column after your URLs with the new URLs you want to direct all of those pages to (with a space at the beginning) like http:// domain.com/new-page-url/291938492 - this will be column C. Use unique URLs if you want them to go to the products on your vendor site, or use one URL to redirect people to your own homepage or product search or category page.

(Don't include a space between the http:// domain.com as shown - that's just so it posts to the forum.)

In the column D, enter the formula =A1&B1&C1 and then paste it all the way down.

This should create a column full of redirects that look like this.

Redirect 301 /your-product-urls/291938492 http:// domain.com/new-page-url/291938492

(Don't include a space between the http:// domain.com as shown - that's just so it posts to the forum.)

Paste all of those into your htaccess file, and you should be all set.

 

what @kikolani said is only the manual work. And more important here is that... there are no alternate products (or new products) to show in the place of the products which are needed to be removed. Old products are required just to be removed, thats it.

 

The point of redirects is to preserve link juice. If you don't have any backlinks pointing to the old URLs then you're not losing anything. Just remove the old product pages from your site and they will naturally get de-indexed in Google and other search engines in due time.

 

Thanks for answering this in simplest terms for me @dcristo.

 

I cant believe the silly advices given here which I would take with a BIG bag of salt... but it would take a while to write out an proper answer. Sorry if that makes me look like sulking annoying person

 

Never realized advices was a word

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/advices
Looks like you did not realize a lot of things. One among them is your seo "knowledge"
Examples in literature
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/search/Search.aspx?By=0&SearchBy=4&q=advices

 

Oh really? So what SEO advice are you giving exactly? Because you haven't made one in this thread.

 

Yes, I have not. Your first correct observation in this thread. Congratulations

Anyway I do not know anything about seo so just ignore this random gregevskye

 

It takes a genius to point out the advice given is bad without explaining why. We need more people like you in this world.

You could have fooled me

 

@gregevskye What is your take on this?

And, do you realize you 'liked' your own insult?

 

Yes cause it was funny

 

May I ask why you criticized other users advice without offering your own?

In your opinion, can I not just delete the products from my website?

 

I still think that even with no traffic, it's not a good idea to remove them... Just like in normal online eccomerce websites! You can write OUT OF STOCK... But you can decide to add them again (for example in 2 years!)

 

I can't do that.

It's in the contract I just signed with the new Merchant.

I am getting some EPIC backlinks out of the deal, so I will gladly part with the current vendors.

My ONLY concern is staying within Google's guidelines for having 404 errors in the SERPs.

 

Nothing @gregevskye?

Just going to knock everyone else's opinion without even hinting at yours.

Jeez, thanks!