Out of Stock gives 404

[ayz1]

If I try and view an out of stock product page when logged into admin I can view it OK and it says Product out of stock. If I try to view the same page when logged out of admin I get a

404 - Page Not Found

error. So if this is happening by default for everyone then having out of stock links in the sitemap might not be a good idea.

[ayz1]

Ah I see there is a Hide Out Of Stock option. So assume deselecting this solves the 404  issue but shows out of stock products on website too. Hmm not ideal.

[Dirty Butter]

Login as a customer or look at store without any login, and you should not SEE the hidden out of stock item. I suppose you would see the 404, since it is NOT a valid url for anyone but the admins.

[ayz1]

Thanks Dirty Butter but I don't have a problem with this as I don't add out of stock items to my sitemap by generating my own sitemap file. The point I was trying to make was that if you use the cubecart generated sitemap which includes out of stock products and Google indexes these then the links in the google search to these products appear to give a 404 error. Have you checked your out of stock links in Google? Does it do the same for you?

[Dirty Butter]

Sorry, ayz1! I misunderstood what you were saying and figured you had commented on the wrong post (I've done that before lol). But we DO want the out of stock items in our sitemap - we get requests from people searching for it to let them know when we find another one, and we run a free lost toy search service. Having all these old listings still available provides very valuable information to people searching for a childhood toy.

We do have another small store where I DO hide out of stock items. That sitemap, generated by CC, does NOT have links to any out of stock items in it.