Google Says Out Of Stock Products May Impact Search Visibility

by WarriorForum.com Administrator
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A new article on Search Engine Journal reports that a product page may get less visibility in Google Search if the item is out of stock.



Google may reduce the visibility of a product page if the item for sale is listed as out of stock on the retailer's website. This is stated by Google's Search Advocate John Mueller during a recent Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout.

A question is submitted by an ecommerce store owner asking if search rankings for transactional keywords could be negatively impacted if the products sell out. Mueller says, in theory, Google could reduce visibility for product pages with out of stock items. However, that doesn't have to be the case.

Mueller doesn't rule out the possibility of out of stock products seeing reduced visibility in search results. He explains Google treats 'out of stock' as a soft 404 error:

"Out of stock - it's possible. That's kind of simplified like that. I think there are multiple things that come into play when it comes to products themselves in that they can be shown as a normal search result. They can also be shown as an organic shopping result as well. If something is out of stock, I believe the organic shopping result might not be shown - I'm not 100% sure.

"And when it comes to the normal search results, it can happen that we when see that something is out of stock, we will assume it's more like a soft 404 error, where we will drop that URL from the search results as well. Theoretically, it could affect the visibility in search if something goes out of stock."
Whether Google treats the product page as having a soft 404 error depends on how much value it offers beyond the product itself. If the page doubles as a resource for information about the product -- information that can still be useful if the product is out of stock -- then it's likely to remain visible in search results. Mueller continues:

"It doesn't have to be the case. In particular, if you have a lot of information about that product anyway on those pages, then that page can still be quite relevant for people who are searching for a specific product. So it's not necessarily that something goes out of stock, and that page disappears from search."
Lastly, Mueller adds that the rest of a site's rankings would not be impacted by a product going out of stock:

"The other thing that's also important to note here is that even if one product goes out of stock, the rest of the site's rankings are not affected by that.

So even if we were to drop that one specific product because we think it's more like a soft 404 page, then people searching for other products on the site, we would still show those normally. It's not that there would be any kind of negative effect that swaps over into the other parts of the site."
#google #impact #products #search #stock #visibility
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Not sure what the point of this article is. Do they have a "solution"? I mean, it's also not a very good idea to just keep taking orders for things that are out of stock. You'll get many more chargebacks, issue many more refunds that you had to pay processing fees on and also spend most of your day dealing with customer service issues that wouldn't be there if you simply listed the product as out of stock.

    Best solution is to have a "Waiting List" button people can click on to be informed when it is back in stock.
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    • Profile picture of the author expmrb
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      Not sure what the point of this article is. Do they have a "solution"? I mean, it's also not a very good idea to just keep taking orders for things that are out of stock. You'll get many more chargebacks, issue many more refunds that you had to pay processing fees on and also spend most of your day dealing with customer service issues that wouldn't be there if you simply listed the product as out of stock.

      Best solution is to have a "Waiting List" button people can click on to be informed when it is back in stock.

      So, many things can be done..


      Just put a label like "Out of Stock".


      And below it "xyz Days remaining".


      Below it "xyz people have already booked", "What are you waiting for ?"
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Originally Posted by expmrb View Post

        So, many things can be done..


        Just put a label like "Out of Stock".


        And below it "xyz Days remaining".


        Below it "xyz people have already booked", "What are you waiting for ?"
        The only problem with selling an out of stock item and showing an estimated shipping date or "back in stock" date is that these days, those estimates can be off by several months with the supply side issues that continue. It still results in a ton of CSR work and in credit card processing fees you have to eat for orders that ultimately get canceled when your estimate was way off base.

        We have suppliers who say their items are sitting on cargo ships in the Pacific for several months, waiting to be unloaded. Because of that, nobody really knows when things are going to be in stock.
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      • Profile picture of the author expmrb
        Originally Posted by expmrb View Post

        So, many things can be done..


        Just put a label like "Out of Stock".


        And below it "xyz Days remaining".


        Below it "xyz people have already booked", "What are you waiting for ?"

        No no.. That I perfectly unederstood. A product can be sitting in a container in Shanghai and get delayed due to the lockdowns.


        What I meant is that this maneuverability should be at the hands of the webmasters and not Google.


        It is the same concept when we see a billboard saying 'XYZ beer 50% off'. But when we actually get to the shop the specific beer is out of stock so we get 'ABC beer for 40% off'.
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  • Profile picture of the author fahadkhan14
    Just put the labels "out of stock" on the products earliest. So, the audience will know immediately about the unavailability of product. If your audience is satisfied, you should not be worried about less visibility of out of stock items in Google.
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