Assume that you have a product page with a friendly URL like https://example.com/opel-corsa-70000km-P1023
and a category page that lists all similar products of the same brand:
https://example.com/opel
.
The .htaccess
file manages the friendly URLs:
RewriteRule ^opel-corsa-70000km-P1023$ index.php?cmd=product&product_id=245
(...)
RewriteRule ^opel$ index.php?cmd=category&cat_id=7 [L]
(...)
RewriteRule ^(.*)P1023$ /shop/index.php?cmd=products&product_id=245
When the product has been sold, its page is depublished, its RewriteRules are removed from the .htaccess
, and the product friendly URL is removed from the sitemap. However, its URL remains known from search engines.
If someone tries to reach the depublished page of a sold product, it will land to the page listing similar products, rather than the home page or a 404 one, which basically seems a good thing from a visitors perspective. It comes from the fact that the second RewriteRule enters the game.
In the previous example, a user interested in the Opel Corsa with 70000 km would land on the page listing cars from the Opel brand, because of the second friendly URLs rule.
A side effect is that the past but still valid URL of the removed page becomes a duplicate of the still existing category page who catches it.
In Google search console, the "Remove Outdated Content Tool" would in theory be the one to use to remove the outdated page. However it refuses removing the product page URL because, from its eyes the page still exists (as the category page is reached). It is nonsense that this tool ignores instructions given by the page owner.
How can I make Google and its Search console durably "forget" the depublished page in this situation?
Should I add a 302 redirection to the home page or a 404 page?
The duplicates pollutes records in the search console.
Thank you for your help.