<b>SOP: handling pages where the data returns nothing</b>

<b>SOP: handling pages where the data returns nothing</b>

The quiet thin-content factory is the page that renders even when the query behind it is empty — "0 {products} found in {city}." Catch every empty state at the gate.

The empty-state decision tree:
☐ Step 1 — Count results at render time, before HTML. Gate: zero results never returns a 200 indexable page.
☐ Step 2 — Route by cause. No data ever for this combination → 404. Temporarily empty but valid combination → 200 + <code>noindex</code> + a useful fallback (nearest alternatives). Gate: distinguish the two; don't 404 a valid page that will refill.
☐ Step 3 — Near-empty (1-2 results) also fails the index gate — it's thin. Action: <code>noindex</code> until it crosses your minimum result count.
☐ Step 4 — Suppress these URLs from the sitemap and from internal-link injection automatically. Gate: no internal link should point at a known-empty page.
☐ Step 5 — Log empty combinations daily. A spike means a broken feed, not real-world scarcity.

Ship gate: don't publish until all boxes are checked.