Hi @longman2020,
Sorry that you ran into issues here!
No, it should not, unless you have a cache. Here’s a possible scenario you might experience with a cache in place:
– You delete an Ad (call it Ad X)
– You then try to search for something that would include Ad X in the results
– Ad X appears in the results (because the cache is not refreshed yet after the delete)
– Clicking on the link to Ad X would result in a 404 because it no longer exists
If you don’t have a cache, then it’s a bug…but I suspect you probably have something cached, either by your hosting company or because of a plugin you installed.
Can you please confirm?
Hi,
You mean after deleting an ad, it is automatically removed from google search results and there is no 404 error?
No, @longman2020, not exactly.
Your site will have either active links to ads or if an ad was deleted, then the link will not exist.
If Google indexes a link on your site that no longer exists, users that click on Google search results will get a 404 error. That’s something we can’t really change…The ad is gone, so what would we redirect it to?
Hi, @awpcp
That’s right.
But as you know nothing is worse than 404 errors for google. And as you can guess, in a classified website, all the ads has an expiration date and are finally deleted. So we will face 404 pages for every ad whether we like it or not.
I have read in some sources that it’s better to do something to engage users not to leave the page.
Things like related ads from the same category can be displayed in 404 pages, or a search field to let the user search through the ads.
I’ve read many articles, and found that these are the best solutions for a classified website.
I’ve also tested some plugins which automatically redirect the 404 pages to a related article (here ads). But none of them were compatible, and even didn’t work well for ordinary posts.
the most logical solution is displaying related ads from the same category under the error message to engage the user to stay on website.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by
longman2020.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by longman2020.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by longman2020.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 10 months ago by longman2020.
HI @longman2020,
I hear where you’re coming from on this…however, “displaying related ads” means we have to know what content was in the deleted ad to do that. And since the ad no longer exists, we have to “save” the deleted ads, which is bad.
The 404 is not ideal, but the data we have at the point of providing this redirect is limited.
We can consider adding something like a 301 redirect to the main classifieds page. I’ll add that to the list of enhancements for now.
From the url
Especially if the user check marks the option: Include the name of the category in the listing URL in settings, the category is displayed in the url.
But please if you want to add the 301 redirect, make it optional.
Because there is a possibility that in the new google search console, there will be an option to remove all the 404 urls at once. If this happens, It will be fantastic.
And thank you for all the hard work
