Ireland SEO Marketing Online

Making The Most From Your 404 Error Page

March 20th, 2008

If it hadn’t been for my psycho dentist and an operation to fix the aftermath of a tooth extraction I would have made this post sooner. I would have used St Patrick’s Day as an excuse but I don’t take holidays and I know I’m not alone on that one.

On the subject of checking for broken links and deleting bad web pages I just want to give short coverage on putting your 404 Not Found page to good use.

Too many people forget that a 404 page is just as important as any other page on a website, why is it important? Simply because visitors still hit your 404 page so it’s better to serve them something useful rather than letting them hit a brick wall on your site.

The above screen shot is a typical example of a piss poor 404 Error page on a MS IIS Server. Believe it or not this screen shot is taken from a so called expert on-line marketing company based here in Ireland, tut tut Continuum.

Keep It Simple

If you search online for 404 Error pages (or something similar) you’ll find lots of advice on the best methods to use in serving a 404 error page. Probably the best advice is to keep it simple.

Tell the visitor the page is no longer available, give them the option to contact you but also direct them to either your homepage or sitemap and even have a search box for them to use. That seems to be the most popular advice that can be found on the web.

A 404 Error page can also be used to earn extra revenue but I’ll come back to that another day.

Entry Filed under: Accessibility