Redirect to 404 When ExpressionEngine Entry has “Closed” Status
Here's something interesting about ExpressionEngine's treatment of "Closed" entries: When an entry is set to the "Closed" status and you manually access the URL, you simply get your template rendered with no content in your {exp:channel:entries} tag.
Why wouldn't you want to have a 404 page being served when a user is trying to get to a Closed status? For example, let's say an entry is originally set as "Open" and, was indexed by Google. A few weeks later, the client decides to take down the page until further notice, so the entry's status is set to "Closed". However, Google obviously has the URL saved and served in their results, which directs some users to the broken template page with no explanation of what's going on. Instead, the page should show the visitor that the page is gone, and doesn't exist (Google will also remove sites from their listings if they crawl a 404'd page).
To make this happen, here's all that needs to be entered in your single entry page template:
{exp:channel:entries channel="my_channel" limit="1" status="closed"}
{if status == "closed"}{redirect="404"}{/if}
{/exp:channel:entries}
This simply returns the closed entry if there is one, and redirects to your custom 404 page. Make sure to replace the channel with your own, and include the status attribute (by default, Closed entries aren't returned with the {exp:channel:entries} tag).
Update: In the comments Robson Sobral points out that the {no_results} tag can also accomplish the same feat. Keep in mind however, there might be more reasons why you could trigger no_results than simply having a Closed entry. As usual, test and figure out what works best for your project!
Here's what other people had to say
Cool tip! But excuse my ignorance—- does one enter the ” status=“closed” ” tag for ALL one’s entries, so that if one gets clsoed i nthe future then it r-directs o 404?
i.e. it’s not done on a per entry basis after having closed an entry?
The code above is only placed in your single-entry template, separate from all other {exp:channel:entries} tags. Assuming you don’t have any closed entries at all, this bit of code gets ignored.
However, if in the future you ever decide to close one of your entries, it will cause any links out there on the web which point to that entry to now go to a 404 page.
It’s essentially insurance in case you ever have to close an entry… does that help?
Yes. It’s clear to me now that this is a good insurance for WHEN and IF one closes an entry,
Thanks again for the cool tip and your help.
Great tip - am just updating my base EE install atm, so will be implementing this (and a couple tips from the Planning ahead with your Expression Engine templates post too).
thanks 
Hi, I’m new in eecms.
Since channel:entries doesn’t return close entries by default, isn’t simpler to test if there’s no_results?
Good point Robson. That would return the same result, assuming you aren’t doing anything fancy with the “Closed” status, or if you aren’t okay with having no_results in your page (an empty sidebar module or recent posts list might be acceptable, for example).
I’ll go ahead and update the article!
I tried a variation of this showing just the Title of the closed entry and a message saying that it had been closed with a couple helpful links for the visitor to find other interesting entries… I’m not sure a 404 is technically the correct message to give, as it’s not a broken page so much as a page where the entry is no longer public, but it did once exist.
@andy: nice! i think i could use something like that. Would you be able to share the code?
From memory it was something like
{exp:channel:entries channel="my_channel" limit="1" status="closed"}
{if status == "closed"}<h3>{title} has been closed. </h3>
<p>Please check <a href="/{segment_2}">{segment_2}</a> for more entries</p>{/if}
{/exp:channel:entries}
Apologies for the slightly messy code formatting, but you get the idea
@Andy, I’m looking through the w3 status codes and I think 404 is still the best option. We associate 404 with a “broken” link, but really all it means officially is the page isn’t found, and there’s no indication whether that’s permanent or not (as opposed to the 410 status).
I think it’s acceptable to have a page return a 404 for a period of time, and then start working again in the future (I can’t seem to find a status that works better anyway)... correct me if I’m wrong.
I do agree, however, that using the URL to guess where the visitor might be headed and helping out with relevant links is always a good idea.
It is an extra entries:call i would rather skip. In most cases i already use a dedicated template for single entries with require_entry=“yes”. This makes it fairly straightforward that if no_results, we can redirect to 404, like Robson mentioned.
October 14, 2011 7:22 pm
HHIS I should have touhhgt of that!
