First of all, you may be thinking, what is ecommerce SEO? Ecommerce SEO is the process of optimising your online store to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This involves a variety of strategies, from keyword research and on-page optimisation to technical SEO and link building. The goal is to drive more organic traffic to your ecommerce site, ultimately increasing sales and revenue. In this blog, we will uncover how stock availability affects SEO and share best practices for managing out-of-stock products on your ecommerce site.
Table of contents:
How Stock Availability Impacts SEO
Out-of-stock products are not just a frustration for customers, they can also affect your SEO performance. When items are unavailable, it can lead to reduced website traffic, increased abandonment rates, and a negative impact on your Google rankings. Google tends to deprioritise pages with out-of-stock items, causing you to lose any keyword positioning the product may have had.
In a recent Q&A session, an SEO professional asked John Mueller about the impact of out-of-stock products on search rankings. The question asked was: “Let’s say my product page is ranking for a transactional keyword. Would this affect its ranking if the product is out-of-stock?”
John Mueller explained that the impact can vary depending on several factors. For organic shopping results, an out-of-stock product might not be displayed, although this isn’t always guaranteed. For standard search results, out-of-stock products can sometimes be treated like a soft 404 error, potentially causing the URL to drop from search results. However, if the product page contains a lot of valuable information, it can still remain relevant and appear in search results even if the product is out-of-stock.
John Mueller also emphasised that the rest of the site’s rankings won’t be affected if one product is out of stock. The potential drop in visibility is typically isolated to the specific product page, ensuring that searches for other products on the site remain unaffected. View the full video here.
How to Handle Out-of-stock Products
1. Allow Customers to Pre-Order Out-of-stock Items
Keeping users on the page by allowing them to pre-order out-of-stock items can be a great way to maintain engagement and prevent a drop in rankings. Instead of temporarily removing out-of-stock items or deleting the product page, which can damage your organic search performance, offering a pre-order option signals to Google that the product is still available. This approach helps retain keyword rankings and improves user experience by giving customers the chance to secure the product once it becomes available again.
2. Make Stock Availability As Clear as Possible
If a product is permanently out of stock, it’s important to communicate this clearly to both users and search engines. Evaluate the value of the product page, if it ranks for specific terms or has valuable backlinks, consider redirecting it with a 301 to the most relevant product category page. This way, you maintain the SEO value and inform customers that the specific product is no longer available. If the page lacks SEO value, you can delete it and return a 410 status code.
3. Activate Email Alerts When Product Becomes Available
Enabling email alerts for when a product is back in stock is beneficial for both SEO and customer retention. This method allows you to keep interested customers informed and engaged. Pre-order options secure sales despite current stock issues, while email notifications can include other products, offers, and primary keywords, contributing to your overall digital marketing strategy.
4. Link to Relevant Alternative Products
Linking to relevant alternative products is essential to improve user experience and SEO. Avoid creating 404 error pages, which Google dislikes, by linking to similar products or the relevant product category page. This practice ensures customers stay within a “product loop,” reducing bounce rates and maintaining a clear internal linking structure, which is beneficial for search engine performance.
5. Apply an Unavailable Date Meta Tag
An unavailable after meta tag is a useful tool for managing out-of-stock products. This tag signals to search engines that the contents of a page should not be crawled after a certain date. Unlike the “noindex” tag, which is a directive, the unavailable_after tag is a hint that may or may not be followed by search engines. If adhered to, this tag helps allocate the site’s crawl budget to more important pages, potentially keeping the page in the index for occasional visits.
6. Apply Product Schema
Using structured data like product Schema helps keep search engines informed about the status of your products. There are various schema options available that can describe product availability. These are:
- Backorder
- Discontinued
- In stock
- Limited availability
- Out of stock
- Pre-order
- Sold out
Ensuring your structured data is up-to-date allows search engines to accurately reflect your product’s availability, helping maintain your SEO performance.
7. Optimise Your Product Pages
When a product is out of stock, it is important to go back and optimise the product page. You can add relevant internal links to guide customers to similar products or categories, helping them stay on your site longer. It is also important to ensure the content on the page remains relevant and engaging, potentially highlighting related products or offering helpful information about restocking dates.
The Final Say
Managing out-of-stock products correctly is important for maintaining your ecommerce site’s SEO performance as well as ensuring a smooth user experience for any potential customers. It is also a great opportunity to upsell products or guide customers to similar available items, ultimately enhancing their shopping experience and potentially increasing your overall sales.
Our team of SEO experts are dedicated to helping you manage your ecommerce website, ensuring a smooth shopping experience for your customers. We make sure that out-of-stock items don’t affect your overall website performance.
Reach out to our team today for more information.
