We have a Magento e-commerce store.

What should we do about page redirects for discontinued products please, from a SEO perspective, so as not to lose any link juice? They currently become 404 pages.

Do we just keep an eye on 404 pages and redirect them in the .htaccess file?

The redirect would normally go to a category page for a discountinued product.

We currently use a module in Magento which links to a shared Google spreadsheet so we can define the redirect. It is not good to use the Magento redirect as you can end up redirecting an already redirected to page (so I understand). It would be good to have access to whatever solution we decide so we can implement site updates and keep the link juice flowing.

Your advice would be welcome. Thank you in advance.