Google may reduce product page visibility if an item for sale is listed as out of stock on a retailer’s website.
Google’s search advocate John Mueller said this during a recent Google Search Center SEO office hour hangout.
An e-commerce store owner submitted a question asking if search rankings for transactional keywords would be negatively impacted if the product sold out.
In theory, Mueller said, Google could reduce the visibility of out-of-stock product pages.
However, this is not the case. Read his full response in the section below.
Google treats out-of-stock products as soft 404s
Mueller does not rule out the possibility that out-of-stock products have reduced visibility in search results.
He explained that Google treats “out of stock” as a soft 404 error:
“Out of stock – it’s possible. That’s how it’s simplified. I think when it comes to the product itself, there are multiple factors that come into play because they can show up as normal search results.
They can also appear as organic shopping results. If something is out of stock, I believe the organic shopping results may not show up – I can’t be 100% sure.
When it comes to normal search results, when we see that something is out of stock, we assume it’s more of a soft 404 error, and we also remove that URL from the search results.
In theory, if something is out of stock, it could affect search visibility. “
Google will still show product pages if relevant
Whether Google considers a product page to have a soft 404 depends on the value it provides outside of the product itself.
If the page doubles as a resource for product information — which is still useful if a product is out of stock — it’s likely to remain visible in search results.
Mueller continued:
“It doesn’t have to be. In particular, if you have a lot of information about that product on those pages, the page is still very relevant to someone who is searching for a specific product. So it’s not necessarily that an item is out of stock, The page disappeared from search.”
Finally, Mueller added that the rest of the site’s rankings won’t be affected by product out-of-stocks.
“Another thing to note here is that even if one product is out of stock, the rest of the site’s rankings will not be affected.
So even if we drop that particular product because we think it’s more of a soft 404 page, and then people search for other products on the site, we’ll still display those products as normal. Not that any negative effects will transfer to other parts of the site. “
Hear Mueller’s full response in the video below:
Featured image: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
