Help me fix ever growing number of 404s

Hi,

How can I fix this problem? I have product links that google caches that are constantly being removed from our website because they are out of stock. Thus google reports these as 404s and since we constantly have products that are removed when sold out, this list is constantly growing? How can I fix it so that it doesn't return 404 when people click on outdated links? Right now zen is returning a blank page with the text "sorry, item not found" and 404 status code. How can I change it so that it doesn't return the 404?

I've used kuroi's solution here but I think that solution is still returning 404s
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91690 .

How can I fix this problem? Thanks.

I know that this in not a pretty solution but I would leave the items in your cart and just insure that you are set to show them as out of stock. Ergo - no 404 error but probably a growing # of products

As we can not control what the SE's cache

Hi kobra,
Thanks for your reply. If we can change the status code that is being returned, then that can fix the problem. Right now using kuroi's solution is great because the page will randomly display new products and specials, but the problem is I don't where to change the status code that the page is returning. Any ideas?