Is it okay to deactivate temporary sale collection pages after the sale?

[PHV]

I have created temporary sale collections that are used periodically throughout the year. Is it okay to turn these collection pages off (404) after the sale is over or what is the best practice? Will this hurt my site health/ranking with Google?

[ilanadavis]

Hey @PHV 

I do not recommend hiding those pages and making them 404 errors. Google will think those pages aren't valid and eventually remove them from search results. Then when it's time to use that collection page again, it will be harder (and longer) to get them to rank again.

The best path is to keep them active. If no products are currently on sale, use the description to say as much or link to alternative collections.

For example, if you have a Christmas collection and nothing is currently in that collection, use an app like Linking Llama to recommend other holiday collections like Valentine's Day or Summer Sale.

This way the customer may still come across that page but doesn't land on a dead end. Your goal is to keep them shopping so recommend alternative collections and keep the page live.