Make a More Functional 404 Error Page

Marincky · #1 03-05-2008, 12:34 AM

There may be other ways of doing this, this may have already been discussed, but for those of you out there who are interested in my way here is a great way to make a far more impressive and practical 404 error page.

When someone types an error on your domain address or maybe clicks on a redundant link that is still on the seacrh engine, they usually get taken to a very informal blank white page that says something like:

404 Error. The requested page cannot be found.

Pretty useless for your potential visitors as they will now bugger off elsewhere!

Here however, is what happens when they click on one of my client's sites on a url that doesn't exist...

http://www.steppin-out.co.uk/pagemadeup.html
(click to see what happens)

This is a much better page for your client to land on than the usual 404 error page.

How to make:

Create your own 404 page by using one of your site pages as the template. In my example above, the error page is basically an exact duplicate of the home page. I have just ammended the top lines to read as it does. You can create a page as you like though.

I named this page custom_page but again, name it what you like and publish it.

Go into your CP and then File Manager.

Look for a file called .htaccess

Open this file up to edit.

If it is blank just add this exactly as it is below and on one line.

ErrorDocument 404 /custom_page.html

It's also a good idea to add the code <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> to the <head> section of your 404 page, so that search engine robots don't add it to their indexes.

(If you named your page anything else but custom_page then just change that in the link above)

save it.

Now see if it works....

Marincky · #2 03-05-2008, 12:51 AM

I forgot to add....

My client above received 845 error page hits in the last 4 days. Visitors coming across standard erro pages are fairly likely to go to another site... Need I say more?

judavvforum · #3 03-05-2008, 04:02 AM

Thanks for that bit of wisdom, Ramsey! It really does make more sense! I didn't even know that we had control of that page!

It's a good day when you can learn something new!

Cheers!

sedona · #4 03-05-2008, 02:16 PM

Thanks for that, Ramsey. Very easy and a valuable addition to any site. When I come across custom 404s where I can navigate back into the site I usually do so, as you say.
CarbonTerry did a tutorial on this subject a while back and I meant to get back to it but didn't. Will be building one today.
Cheers!

Marincky · #5 03-05-2008, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sedona

Thanks for that, Ramsey. Very easy and a valuable addition to any site. When I come across custom 404s where I can navigate back into the site I usually do so, as you say.
CarbonTerry did a tutorial on this subject a while back and I meant to get back to it but didn't. Will be building one today.
Cheers!

Yeah as I said I wasn't sure if someone had touched on this before, but no doubt there are loads of ways, this is just one I discovered that I feel looks good.

Tom vR · #6 03-05-2008, 04:16 PM

Thanks Ramsey for a great post.

choco777 · #7 03-05-2008, 10:33 PM

Nothing in file mgr saying htacess

Marincky · #8 03-06-2008, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by choco777

Nothing in file mgr saying htacess

hmmm, I just noticed on the new control panels this file does not show in the file manager, despite being able to see it through ftp manager. You can always create a new file with notepad and call it .htaccess. Then just enter the code I showed above.

Marincky · #9 03-10-2008, 02:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by choco777

Nothing in file mgr saying htacess

Click on file legacy manager.

Marincky · #10 03-11-2008, 11:26 PM

Just two little updates to this:

1) If you have more than one domain on an account, this can still be done. Just make a custom 404 page for all sites, make sure they are all named the same and publish them all to their respective domains.

2) Since doing this on all my own sites my Google Adsense revenue has increased by about 25%.

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