404 Pages

Hi all,

How do I serve a custom 404 page on my site? I'm doing a monster reconstruction, and I'm bound to slip up somewhere, so I want to make sure I have all of my bases covered.

Thanks
Michael

Michael..

The best way is to build a single HTML page with links to your sponsors sites as well as POTD (picture of the day) programs and email collection boxes.

Once you have that page built name it something simple like error.html and upload it to your domains root.

Then put the following in your htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 400 /error.html
ErrorDocument 403 /error.html
ErrorDocument 404 /error.html
ErrorDocument 500 /error.html
ErrorDocument 501 /error.html

Regards,

Lee

Also, here is an article which may be of some use to you too :)

http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/...&threadid=2055

Regards,

Lee

I don't necessarily agree with creating a 404 page that is full of advertising. My assumption is that when someone hits a page on my site that I've renamed, or removed from the server or if they accidentally type it in wrong, that they still want to see my site. I prefer to build a nice 404 page to replace the one that the browser displays but I keep it relevant to my site.

If someone doesn't get the page on my site they were expecting, I think they'd much prefer to have a page load that lets them know they've accessed a page that doesn't exist but still gives them a way to get to my main page so they can navigate from there. If they get a page that's full of banners and ads for other sites, I would think it would just piss them off.

Perhaps a combination of what Lee suggested along with a nice heading that says something like "We're sorry, but the page you were looking for has either moved or doesn't exist. Click here to return to our main page." Put your logo on the page and maybe even your full navigation bar and then put something else on their they might find interesting in case they don't click to go to your main page.

Lee,

Thanks. You're brilliant!
If Gary hasn't told you so today, please, poke him.

Michael

Quote:

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Originally posted by Dzinerbear
Lee,

Thanks. You're brilliant!
If Gary hasn't told you so today, please, poke him.

Michael

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He tells me HE is brilliant all the time.