If rule #1 is to NOT include the characters 404 on the 404 page, how can your recommend useit.com’s 404 page?
I actually disagree with your idea about not printing “404” on the error page. Almost every “good” article that you link to as well as the title of your own blog calls these pages “404 pages”. Why? Because that’s what WE know them as.
Best 404 ever: http://thcnet.net/error/index.php
BOOYA… enjoy.
Best 404 ever: http://thcnet.net/error/index.php
Booya. Enjoy!
I dunno, I don’t think defaults are all bad. http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6361/200703201347081440x900swh5.png
I’m all for “friendly” error pages, but for God’s sake, embed some hidden text in there (or maybe put it in the page’s footer) saying that this is a 404 error. It’s always nice (for developers and other non-nontechnical people) to know exactly what the error is. I’ll admit, this isn’t SO important for 404’s, but for 401’s it’s critical. 401.1 and 401.2 are worlds apart in when it comes to trying to debug authentication woes.
This is my favorite 404…but I’m biased - I’m a librarian…
http://www.librarian.net/404
Catherine
I recently finished building a comedy ‘batman’ inspired 404 error page for my blog;
Couldn’t resist… At least it tells that file is not found!
I find it ironic that codinghorror.com finds the information in this article infomational enough to post on their site, but they don’t find it informational enough to take its direction. Go to http://codinghorror.com/asdfkljahpqwhadf.htm. They use one of the 404 pages that was recommended to not be used.
http://www.gudmagazine.com/codinghorror_404 – maybe “File not Found” is too much the center of the message, still? But I think it’s good to let the user know up front and unequivicably that the page they got is NOT the page they were looking for. My “standard” for corporate sites is to just reuse the “sitemap” page, with a little extra information. One thing I’d like to have that’s missing is a search bar. Some day? Maybe after this post. 
Interesting to know what the history behind the 404 error code is:
http://www.room404.com/
(Give it 5 seconds to load the page instead of the error code displayed)
Something to consider about automatically redirecting: I open lots of links in other tabs as I read. By the time I get to the other tabs, I often don’t remember where I opened the tabs from. If something is redirected and the original URL isn’t showing in the address bar, I have basically no chance to figure out where I was trying to go.
I finally put up the 404 page for this site, so we can lay that criticism to rest. 
Hi Jeff - I have a question, maybe someone will know the answer.
I moved hosts in January, after completely redesigning my site and changing the structure from .html pages to Wordpress.
The problem is that months later I am still getting tons of 404 hits for pages and files that no longer exist on the new version of my site. My host, Media Temple, is typically great, however I am getting dinged in for using resources when these attempts to access these long gone files are accessed. I have created an .htaccess file to prevent hotlinking. I’ve created a lite custom 404 page. Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks for reading.
Hey Jeff, your 404 doesn’t seem to be kicking in…
This is my all-time favoriate 404 page. http://www.ferdaze.com/errors/401/ It’s about time I make a spiffy one for my site.
http://www.codinghorror.com/gimme-a-404
The 404 page is working for me…
Great.
It looks fine.
I just made 404 page and it works fine,
Thanks,
teagift
Jeff, when I try hitting a page on your that I’m pretty certain doesn’t exist (like: http://www.codinghorror.com/bogus), I don’t get a 404 page. Shouldn’t I?
I think some people are missing the point when it comes to custom 404 pages.
First, let’s look at why they come up. They come up because someone or something called for a page that simply cannot be loaded for some reason. This may have been accidental, or intentional. They may not even truly be generated by a person.
So first thing would be to look at the type of site you offer, then at the type of traffic you are trying to generate. If you are running a simply one page site, that gets 1 hit a month, then worrying about 404 pages should not be a concern.
If however you are running a 1000 page site, generating $10,000 a week in revenue, and millios of visits a year, then make sure that your 404 pages are both of high quality and informative to your target audience.
This does not mean that it has to be a sales page, or redirect to another page, or that it should not contain an error message. The best options might be to include a little of both. Heck, even make then useful. Include an error message stating the page they were looking for was not found, offer a handful of suggestion or a sitemap, and give them some valuable info about your company or products.
The 404 is still a page on your website. If you put forth the effort to make every other page look so good, then you should concentrate some time to making your 404 both informative to your visitor, and useful to you as the provider. Try to shoot for the best of both world.
