404 Pages pages are displayed to website viewers when they reach a non-existent page on a website. This often happens when they click on a broken link, a web-page that has since been deleted or they have simply typed in the websites URL wrong…

The 404 page is displayed in response to this request for a missing web-page, the webserver sends back a HTTP status code called a 404 to indicate to the user and the search engines that the page is no longer found. Depending on your ISP, hosting company or CMS different information is displayed which is often not of great value to the viewer. This leads to the user leaving the site which is not the idea of having a great website is it!

User friendly 404 page tips

The creation of a custom 404 page is definitely a recommendation of mine and likely the rest of the worlds Search Engine Optimisation industry workers. This page should include a method for the user to find the page that they looking for as well as providing them with information about what has happened and how they can continue to find useful information within the website.

As a 404 page can be created with basic HTML it can be customised in multiple ways. It is still important to ensure that the server response code is a 404 for the search engines (this also ensures that it is not indexed within the search results) and information is provided to the user telling them that the page isn’t found, outside of that it should include standard navigation, links to important information and the sites normal design, style and feel.

It can often be useful to add a search box to the 404 page to allow users to search through the site and view multiple options to read the information that they want!

For more examples on 404 pages from the sensible to the downright crazy check out my small post on 5 cool, creative and downright crazy 404 error pages