COMMENTS
This happens 1% of the time to me when I searh a site. I guess a cutsie little barney like monster ok, but it is just annoying when this happens. Marketers clear your 404's
Never thought of that, but it makes sense. Just in case it happens, you might as well treat it as another opportunity to connect with your market.
This is good stuff. The reality is this is going to happen whether you're a large or small company.
I worked for a large publishing company that had an abundance of web sites and web pages which made it difficult to keep up with the page error issue. This was several years ago, but our way to deal with it was to put our company's customer service phone number on the page. Not the best solution, but it was better than just the ugly 404 error page.
Thanks for these more forward-thinking ideas.
My favorite is: http://www.homestarrunner.com/systemisdown.html
I think in some instances a personalized 404 page is great. Maybe not for every business, but if a business finds a way to make the pages useful and generate more traffic, then that's a success. :)
I hate stumbling upon these pages, who doesn't?
However, I think the first 'fun' 404 error page is by far the best solution. Everybody likes to put a bit of blame on something that goes wrong, plus, being able to email the person 'who is to blame' may be a great way for a company to further develop their customer relationships. Sending an email apologising for the fault may do wonders for a consumer relationship or it may well go ignored. In any case I think that as a solution is a great way to tackle the negative perceptions of the 404 error.
How do you control what 404 error page comes up?
Miranda, that's a great question. I didn't want to get too technical in the post, because it really depends on your site's setup.
But generally, you can build an HTML page and name the file "404.html" or "404.php". Then upload it into the main folder that your website's files are hosted in, and that file will be served to a visitor whenever they encounter a 404 error.
Here's a great step-by-step:
http://www.webweaver.nu/html-tips/custom-404.shtml
Hartley, thanks so much! This is really COOL!
Having a quirky 404 error page like this may entertain. But, for those serious marketers who are monitoring their Google Webmaster Tools which is reporting the possiblity of a massive amount of 404 errors, then this just can't be good for your website's relationship with search engines.
Website page management is a seriously overlooked subject and I find many website owners do not properly manage their pages or monitor what links might be pointing to a page in their website, only to find that the page was deleted - by the website author - and so this inbound link from A another site is going nowhere, even if the web author's site flags up a quirky 404 page.
Somebody said earlier - just correct the errors so they don't appear in the first place.
Its simply two rules makes sure you have no broken links inside your own website, and any links someone has gone to the bother of posting on some other site to point to yours - check that it actually gets someone into the right part of your website.
The bottom line, make best use of Google Webmaster Tools, the answers are all there, its Google talking to you about your errors!
Happy website page management.
Brian, I agree! No matter how great your error page is, it's still an error page - which is never a good sign. It's important to make sure that all of your site's resources are where they're supposed to be.
A well-designed 404 page only acts as a sort of temporary insurance policy until you get a chance to fix the actual issue that's generating the 404.
We implemented this last time you wrote about 404 errors.
Didn't think of making them fun, but what a great idea.
I had actually came across a good post about this and also wrote one of my own which includes reference to this other one.
http://www.adeogroup.co.uk/blog/2009/12/ecommerce-404-page-test/
Personally i think its good to have all bases covered, you should manage your 404s, but if someone does get a 404 its good to have a page that may help convert that visitor.
Put a couponcode on the 404 for the inconvience, when owning a webshop. You'll probably get some never expected sales out of your 404 page.
Or advertise with a free additional (small) product visitors get when they buy from your shop. Only limited to those who came across the 404.
Well, it's not always marketers' faults that 404s come up. Marketers aren't usually developers. Also, anyone can mistype a URL and get a 404 - that's not a programmatic issue in those cases.
Good 404s, like good 403s or 500s, should have "just in case" handholding pages. It's just good practice.
I just spent the evening doing 301 redirects. This is a better option until I can get to them.
I went from a stuffy "File not found" 404-page to something less serious this morning thanks to this post! Will this calm down a frustrated visitor? I hope so. Thanks for the great idea Hartley.
Great article, thanks for the suggestions.
This is a very useful strategy. I have my 404 error page set up to always have those who visit still want to come in the future when they can browse through my site. If you need help with social media networks or websites made for your company go to my website and give us a call
another good thing that lets you monitor 404 pages is to set up a negative goal in analytics. this works the same way a positive goals. However this lets you see how often a visitor reaches a 404 page, thus letting you update this.