useit’s 404 page is a joke. classic example of function overpowering form. 1976 is better but not best. just because it meets all the criteria does not make it the best.
Great suggestions.
Is anyone taking steps to prevent the error pages from being indexed by the search engines for any reason?
Wouldn’t it be a bad idea for these pages to show up in the search results?
Great roundup of more artistic 404 pages:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/17/404-error-pages-reloaded/
Here’s another one: http://www.66mobile.com/404.shtml
Hello
The 404 is universal. Doesn’t matter if the error page is in Uzbekistanese, because the error code is what matters and what the users are familiar with.
If you don’t include the error code, you have to translate the message to every language there is to be really user-friendly. With it, you don’t need any words at all because everyone knows what it means and if they don’t, they’ll start to wonder what it means and ask.
Great article. I really like the 1976 404 page. When I have the time, I will model mine after that. The other wasn’t very good–the formatting just didn’t work for me.
Anyway, thanks for the article–very helpful,
Richard
Thanks
Great tips
I mostly agree, but beg to differ on not having the number 404 on the page at all. I think by the now the meaning of ‘404’ has sunk pretty deeply into at least portions of our society, and a fair number of people will be confused and distracted to have to read halfway through an explanation before they suddenly realise oh - it’s a 404!.
Of course, the 404 should coexist with a plain language explanation for our mums and dads.
Very useful information. I am creating my own.
Why it still Internal Server Error ? i already make .htaccess
LOL!
F’in show me a helpful 404 page. I dare you.
I know I’m late (but my blog is only 3 months old)…
http://www.eroticachallenge.com/notachanceitshere
Helpful? grins
Linkgraph is a 404 widget that gets the correct URL of the page the visitor wanted.
It works with a database that is fed location information of a websites pages. As a widget, it’s a bit like the Google 404 widget (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/make-your-404-pages-more-useful.html), except Linkgraph uses a pages history to get its new location.
Sorry… the URL being http://linkgraph.net/
Check out my 404 i made.
http://www.reelfishn.net/404.htm
LinkedIn’s has two 404 pages - a good one and a bad one. Mistype a name, get a ‘good’ one.
Leave a trailing slash on a URL and you get the raw apache tomcat error page. I’m guessing they need to reconfigure something:
http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/linkedin-404-page-bad-review/
I have already issues with 404 pages in my site: http://www.otimizacao-de-websites.com that generates too much duplicate content and that happens because of bad hosting!
Great article.
Ive already bookmarked and subscribed the feeds.
Its always good to have some custom page with some links to the most important pages of the site!
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.