WooCommerce discontinued product: what to do with the item and its address
A WooCommerce discontinued product leaves behind an address that lives on in Google, in links and in emails. Before you click Move to Trash, decide what should happen to that address. Item coming back: keep the page, set out of stock. There is a successor: redirect with a 301. No successor: send people to a category, or leave a 404 or 410.
Author: The TellMyShop team. A guide for WordPress site and WooCommerce store owners: the cause, the manual fix and the same work in a chat conversation.
Last updated: · 7 min read
Four questions before you delete a product
This decision is about the product, not just the error. First work out what this item means for the shop, then choose what happens to the address.
- Is the item coming back? The supplier has a break, the season is over, you are waiting for a new batch. Then you delete nothing.
- Is there a successor? A newer model, the same product in new packaging, a version with a different code from the wholesaler.
- Does the page have traffic or links? Visits from Google, links from forums, blogs, price comparison sites or your old newsletters.
- Is the page valuable in itself? Customer reviews, a detailed description, questions and answers, instructions people search for even after the item is discontinued.
If you answer “yes” to the first question, you don't need to read on. The page stays and you only change the stock status. Google says so plainly in its guide to pausing an online business: it is better to mark the item as unavailable than to delete pages, because a deleted address drops out of results.
Decision table: keep, 301, 404 or 410
| Product situation | What to do with the address | What to watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Back in a week, a month, next season | keep the page, set out of stock | check that the shop doesn't hide out-of-stock products in the catalogue |
| Discontinued, there is a successor | 301 to the successor | the successor should meet the same need, not just have a similar name |
| Discontinued, no successor, similar products exist | 301 to the closest category | a category, not the homepage |
| Discontinued, but the page has reviews, instructions or many links | keep it as an archive page, with a notice and links to replacements | turn off purchasing so nobody orders an item you don't have |
| Discontinued, no traffic and no equivalent | 404 or 410 | nothing more is needed, this is normal shop life |
| Test, duplicate, added by mistake | delete, a 404 is usually enough | check nothing links to it from the menu or posts |
The most common mistake is one rule for everything. Guides on out-of-stock products (in Polish) all repeat the same point: you treat a temporarily unavailable item differently from one discontinued with a successor, and differently again from an old product nobody searches for.
What happens to the address after you click Move to Trash
A product in the bin is no longer visible in the shop. Its address starts returning “not found”, a 404. WooCommerce won't redirect the customer to a successor or a category by itself. WordPress sometimes guesses a similar address and redirects there, but that is chance, not a plan. The same happens when you change the product status to draft or private.
The bin is safe, because the product can be restored from it along with its address. Deleting permanently cannot be undone. So when discontinuing, the order is simple: first the redirect or the decision on a 404, then the bin, and permanent deletion only for test products and duplicates.
If you sell variations (sizes, colours), discontinuing one size is a different matter from discontinuing the product. A variation has no address of its own in the shop, so it is enough to disable it or set it out of stock. The WooCommerce documentation on variable products explains how variations work. The product address stays.
The archive page: when it pays not to delete
Sometimes the old product page is the best page in the shop. It has dozens of reviews, people look for its instructions or spare parts, blogs link to it. A redirect takes that content away, and the successor doesn't have it.
Then you keep the page and turn it into a signpost. At the top of the description, a short notice: “We have discontinued this model. Its successor: Lumo 2 solar lamp”. A link to the replacement, a link to the category, purchasing turned off through out of stock. WooCommerce has no separate “discontinued” status, so out of stock and a clear sentence in the description are usually enough. How availability reaches the data for Google depends on the SEO plugin and the theme.
How the chat helps you decide about a product
The TellMyShop plugin for WordPress and WooCommerce reads the product, its sales and the 404 errors in the shop. In the free TellMyShop Free your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) checks the discontinued products: their sales, reviews, links from your posts and menu, and after discontinuing, visits to the old addresses in the 404 report. It finds candidate successors and prepares a “before → after” plan for each product. It does not delete products itself, in TellMyShop Pro either.
You: I'm discontinuing the Lumo solar lamp and the Retro string lights 10 m. What should I do with their pages?
Your chat: Lumo lamp: 41 sold in the last 90 days, 18 reviews, links from two blog posts. The newer Lumo 2 model is in the same category at the same price.
You: Do that for Lumo. Leave the string lights alone, I'll think about it.
Your chat: First a preview of the status change, then a preview of the 301 redirect. The target works, there is no loop or chain. I'll save it after your ‘yes’, check the old address and suggest fixing the links in the two posts.
Card status: waiting for your “yes”old version: Lumo solar lamp, published
new version: Lumo solar lamp, draft, 301 redirect to Lumo 2 solar lamp
Retro string lights 10 m: no sales for six months, no links from the shop, no equivalent.
old version: Retro string lights 10 m, published
new version: Retro string lights 10 m, draft, address returns 410
In TellMyShop Pro the chat saves such changes with your approval: it changes the product's status or catalogue visibility, adds a note about the successor to the description, and adds 301 or 410 redirects, up to 50 in one batch. Before saving a redirect it checks that the target works, that no loop or chain is created and that the old address isn't serving content today that the redirect would hide. You can undo most of these changes from the change history.
Stock is a separate matter. Prices, stock and variations need the Sales switch, which the owner turns on separately in the plugin panel. Until you turn it on, the chat prepares the stock change plan but doesn't save it. You will find the details on the TellMyShop for WordPress and WooCommerce page and prices in the pricing.
After discontinuing: check after a week
A discontinued product can come back as an error in places you forgot about. Look at the menu, blog posts and banners: if they link to the old product, change the links to the new one instead of relying on the redirect. Also check the 404 report after a week. If people still land on the old address from Google or from one particular blog, that is a sign the “404” decision was too quick.
You can read more about 404 errors themselves, when WordPress redirects by itself and why it is not worth sending everything to the homepage, in the post on the 404 error in WordPress. If the product is in the shop but nobody buys it, start with the post on why a product isn't selling. The other guides are on the blog.
Questions and answers
Should I delete a product that is temporarily out of stock?
No. If the item is coming back, keep the product page and set it out of stock. Google advises marking such products as unavailable instead of deleting pages, because a deleted address drops out of results and you start from zero when the item returns.
Where should I redirect a discontinued product with no successor?
To the closest category where the customer will find similar things, for example from a discontinued solar lamp to the Solar lamps category. Don't redirect to the homepage. Google may treat that redirect as a soft 404, and the customer has to start searching again anyway.
What is the difference between 404 and 410 for a deleted product?
Both codes say the page is not there. 410 also says it was removed on purpose and won't come back. Google treats both in a similar way, so 410 is more about keeping your records tidy than about better rankings. Use it for products with no traffic and no equivalent.
Can a product in the WooCommerce bin be restored?
Yes. A product moved to the bin can be restored from the Trash tab on the product list, together with its address. Deleting permanently cannot be undone, so with discontinued products it is better to start with the bin or a draft.
Does TellMyShop delete products?
No. The TellMyShop plugin can unpublish a product, hide it in the catalogue, change its description and set up a redirect or a 410. You see every such change in a preview and can undo it. You delete the product itself in the WooCommerce admin.
WordPress is a trademark of the WordPress Foundation. WooCommerce is a trademark of Automattic Inc. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of OpenAI. TellMyShop is not affiliated with these companies.