Article in Web Design

Some ideas aren’t very widely publicized. After all, wouldn’t it be better to make your site 404 error page free than to actually spend time developing your 404 page? Well, yes, of course! However, chances are that at some point in some condition, your traffic will come across a 404 error on your site and be taken to your 404 page.

Usually this page simply states that they’ve encountered a problem and whatever page they are looking for is no longer there.

Since there’s usually no site theme or layout involved with the display of the 404 page, the traffic can either hit the ‘back’ button, type in a new address, or otherwise surf away from your site.

This alone is a very good reason to develop your 404 page.

Historically the development of 404 pages has been very slow. Some webmasters would change the 404 page message to involve a humorous message that would make the traffic smile instead of becoming frustration. Not a bad idea, but what would you give to be able to have your 404 page actually sell and work for you just like the rest of your site does?

Customizing your 404 page isn’t as confusing as it perhaps once was, especially with PHP coding as of late.

While you still need to indicate that the 404 page is indeed an error page, you can also display links or navigation to take your traffic off the 404 page and onto the rest of your site efficiently.

For example, if your site is on dog care products and your traffic reaches your 404 page, add links to your message.

“Sorry you’ve reached this error and the page you’re looking for isn’t here. However here are some other pages / links that do work:

Link: Dog food supplies
Link: Dog grooming supplies
Link: Index of Dog care articles”

The wording isn’t real important right now as I’m sure you’ll word it exactly how you want it to be worded for your target customers. The point is to redirect your traffic’s attention and take them back onto your ‘working’ site.

Here’s the BAD NEWS!

As of February 2008, the Google Taskbar Beta has been taking over 404 error pages. Instead of displaying your’s they display their’s. Even supplying a search bar so that your traffic can leave your site more easily. This is a really bad thing.

Does this mean that everything I just told you is worthless? Not at all!

All you have to do is make a few additional changes.

Headers are what search engines pay attention to. So the 404 page header is usually ‘404’. By changing the header of your header page you can make the search engine ignore the fact that it is an error page. Some suggest that changing the error number completely can help you. This takes some understanding of the different numbers.

For example:
200 – The server has found page (url address) and here it is
301 – The page has been moved permanently – here’s where it is
302 – The page has been moved temporarily – here’s where it is
404 – The page can’t be found and I have no idea where it is.

By changing the code in the header you can fool Google into displaying your 404 page normally and not hijacking it.

Email Katharina at kattmarketing@gmail.com