Keeping Visitors Through 404 Errors - What Should an Error 404 Page Look Like?

The last thing an error 404 page should look like is the standard or default error 404 pages. You should aim to make an error 404 page that looks and feels identical to your site, then with any luck most users won’t even realise that an error 404 page has been generated and won’t have a tarnished view of your site before they buy.
 
Use the same colors, logo, buttons, links and navigation as you use on your home page.  Then give the users a link to a search page, the home page or other important areas as well as giving them your standard navigation system.  With many options the user is far less likely to click back on their browser.  One important thing to note is that an error 404 document can be served in any directory – i.e. www.yourdomainname.com/PDF/engineering/marketing. This means that you should always use explicit and full file names for any links, images, etc.

What Do the Error Codes Mean?

There is technically an error code, or status code, generated every time a request is made to a web server even if the request was successful. For example the status code 200 means ok.  Codes in the 200 and 300 range are generally successful requests that have a file returned. 400 errors are generally bad errors, which are either incorrect or bad requests. If you have access to your server logs or a good statistics package you can see how many error 404’s are actually generated. On one site I maintain the stats package shows that for last week 1.3% of all requests are 404 errors. This may not seem like much but when that 1.3% means 38 requests you can see how many visitors you could be losing.

Next: What Are the Requirements for Setting Up an Error 404 Page? >>
 

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