What is your Error 404 Page?
Published on Tuesday, December 11, 2007 – 12:06 am
Do you ever visit pages that don’t exist any longer, have moved to a new server or have never existed at all?
This is when you get an Error 404 Page.
Once you’ve missed your intended destination, either through a bad or outdated link, or a typo in the page you were hoping to reach, you’ll hopefully get an internal error message from the server.
However, by default these messages aren’t that helpful – after all, you are looking for the information, not for the reason you can’t find this information. Fortunatly, you can style server error messages just the way you style any other pages.
It’s not only a more elegant way to deal with errors, but is also extremely useful for keeping users on your web-site, finding new clients or communicating with the old ones.
Check out my error page here (opens in new window)
You can see that I provide helpful suggestions underneath a creative and humorous image that runs with my sites theme.
So how do I create an error 404 page?
Visit this great 404 Tutorial site.
Some tips for creating your Error 404 Page
1. Use appealing visual elements.
2. Provide alternatives for navigation.
3. Offer an overview of possibly related posts.
4. Communicate with your visitors.
5. Be sincere and cool.
6. Be user-friendly.
7. Don’t provide too many options.
8. Don’t provide too little options.
For some great inspiration visit Smashing Magazine’s 404 Design Showcase.
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5 Responses
to “What is your Error 404 Page?”
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Carson Shold on May 25, 2009 said:
I have to say purevolume has one of the best out there, using a reference to Office Space. Check it.
http://www.purevolume.com/dfafdafasdfd
Mine isn’t quite as witty,
http://www.carsonshold.com/404.hmtl
?? ???? ?? on May 2, 2011 said:
thanks for the post…
the “404 Tutorial site” link is broken…
Jacob Cass on May 2, 2011 said:
Hi, it seems to be working for me?
Hamed on May 2, 2011 said:
some of internet backbones are filtered without any message or speciale page in my country, so i can open some of pages using proxy, like this.
I’m really Sorry Jacob Cass…