Time and time again I come across pages on online retailers (merchants) websites where the product has been removed, these pages often appear in search engines, and links to them appear on other websites and in product feeds.
The point of this article is the quality of the page that visitors are met with, how many times have you come across this scenario?

404

Page not found

The page you requested cannot be found on the server

Basically its an invite to the user to hit the back button and disappear from the website, also its a potential sale lost.

On the high street if a product is sold out its place on the shelf is soon filled by something else, so why not on the web.

Simply revamp the 404 page to say something like:

We are sorry but the product you are looking for is currently not available,

however here are some similar items.

Then list a few items from the same category, this will make your site more sticky and improve the chances of converting the visitor to being a customer.

The potential of 404 pages is limitless, you could add a search box, a full list of departments, brands, ranges etc etc.

Take a look at your site statistics how many 404’s are you generating?

What if just 1% of them was converted to a sale?

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