When the item is not in stock, the website page might not receive as much exposure in Google Search. If a product is out of stock on the retailer’s website, Google could make that page less visible to users.
It was raised in a query by an ecommerce store owner that search results for keywords related to transactions may suffer if the items have sold out. Those pages that contain out-of-stock items may get less visibility from Google, Muller replied theoretically.
Soft 404s are used for Out Of Stock Products.
Out-of-stock products may appear less prominent in search results although Mueller doesn’t rule it out.
The following is how Google sees ‘out of stock’ as a soft 404 error:
“Out of stock – it may happen.” Basically, it’s a simplified version. When it comes to products themselves, I believe a number of factors come into play in that they can also be shown as a normal search result.
As well as organic shopping results, they can be shown as well. I believe organic shopping results may not be displayed if something is out of stock – I’m not 100% certain.
If something is out of stock in the normal search results, we may assume it is similar to a soft 404, which means we will exclude that URL from the search results, too.
There is a possibility that it could affect search ranking if something goes out of stock.”
