Getting Dinged for Inactive Cross Sell items

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   Ray over at ElectricStep.com and myself at DisasterStuff.com have been working on SEO using SEOMOZ to analyze our sites.  We just learned something pretty interesting and I thought I would pass it along.
Here is the scenario.

I add a water filter "A" to my cart.
I add a water filter "B" to my cart.
I set up a cross sell relationship so that "B" shows up on "A" product page.
Works great.
Now I run out of "B" filters, so I go in and make the product inactive because I may not carry it anymore.

Somehow, Google is still seeing the link for product B because the relationship still exists, and when you click on product "B" it lets you try to buy it even though it is marked inactive in the control panel.  But then you get a message that says something like "sorry you loser, this product doesn't exist" something to that effect.

We were getting dinged by Google for this in a pretty major way.

It would be really cool if ProductCart had a "remove all inactive products from relationships" script or automatically removed relationships when a product is marked as inactive.

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

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ammonihah Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 18-April-2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 57	Post Options Post Reply Quote ammonihah Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Getting Dinged for Inactive Cross Sell items Posted: 12-February-2013 at 4:58pm
	Ray over at ElectricStep.com and myself at DisasterStuff.com have been working on SEO using SEOMOZ to analyze our sites. We just learned something pretty interesting and I thought I would pass it along. Here is the scenario. I add a water filter "A" to my cart. I add a water filter "B" to my cart. I set up a cross sell relationship so that "B" shows up on "A" product page. Works great. Now I run out of "B" filters, so I go in and make the product inactive because I may not carry it anymore. Somehow, Google is still seeing the link for product B because the relationship still exists, and when you click on product "B" it lets you try to buy it even though it is marked inactive in the control panel. But then you get a message that says something like "sorry you loser, this product doesn't exist" something to that effect. We were getting dinged by Google for this in a pretty major way. It would be really cool if ProductCart had a "remove all inactive products from relationships" script or automatically removed relationships when a product is marked as inactive. Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12-February-2013 at 7:00pm
	What version are you running? I just tested this on 4.6a, and when I deactivated a product in a cross sell relationship, it stopped showing on the product page it was related to. Also, it sounds like you're saying these deactivated pages would still render if you clicked through to them. That shouldn't happen either. Those links should redirect to msg.asp?message=95 I'm am curious, though, to know how exactly Google was dinging your sites. If I got that right and the deactivated pages where still showing their product info, that shouldn't be a problem itself with Google. However, did googlebot start submitting forms and adding to cart? I'm trying to see how what you describe Google would actually take issue with. There's always something new going on, right?

ammonihah Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 18-April-2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 57	Post Options Post Reply Quote ammonihah Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13-February-2013 at 1:42pm
	I am running v4.1a SP 2, maybe that is the problem. Let me restate to make sure we are on the same page. If I make a product inactive, and it is part of a cross sell, right now I have to manually go in and remove the cross sell product or my customers can click through and get to the product page. When they try to order it, then they are redirected to the msg.asp. I was getting dinged because of the high number of pages that were 404 ing. As soon as I started manually removing these cross sells, my errors went down and I started moving up in rank. And yes, these deactivated links were loading but then when you tried to buy one it would give you the error. Did a lot of work on it again yesterday and last night. Waiting now till Sunday for SEOMOZ to spider me again so I can see how it views these changes.

Hamish Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56	Post Options Post Reply Quote Hamish Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13-February-2013 at 1:51pm
	Are you saying the products show up as a cross sell even when they are inactive? If so then yes, an upgrade will fix this. It's always worth keeping up to date if at all possible.
	Editing ProductCart Code? See WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 19-February-2013 at 3:39pm
	I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this. If the cross sell product pages are resolving (even though they are inactive), that's not a 404 response. Further, if Googlebot were to submit the add to cart form (which, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't as it has no purpose to), the msg page is still not a 404 response. The product page would return a 200 response and the message a 302 response. I am not seeing how any of this is related to 404 responses or how removing them would reduce your 404 response instances. I must be missing something.