Philosophical question: If a mistyped url falls in a forest of web pages, can anyone see it? We’ve all seen ‘em, the boring old “the page you requested does not exist” messages when we mistyped a url or file name.
The problem with the standard HTTP Error page is that it can be scary to the, shall we say, technically challenged customers that might happen across something like this:
Most people don’t know what the codes mean, may not know what a URL is, and wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to contact the server’s administration, assuming they cared enough to try again to find what they were looking for.
A recent Craigslist experience caused me to seek creative examples of the “404 page not available” messages.
Here’s a screen shot of the Craigslist 404 that sent me on this quest:
This one’s pretty good; it’s better than the standard old government issue 404 error page, but not as good as some I’ve come across. It seems I’m not alone in this endeavor, as 365Questions.org has compiled a few examples of funny messages, from the philosophical to the vintage inspired.
I would love to see your own creative ways you handled 404 pages, or good examples you’ve seen. Care to share?
Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by Vanessa
Filed under: Web Design and Usability
Nice one from Craigslist. I didn’t know it. Cool !
Here I have some more …
http://www.365questions.org/2007/10/21/is-there-an-art-of-404-pages-20/
Very cool! I did not realize that websites had control over the error messages that are displayed. I thought they were controled by Steve Jobs, or something.
How would someone go about implementing an original error message on their site?
Hi Mike,
MightyMerchant has a generic “page not found” message, but it’s easy to add a custom 404 page. To add a custom 404 document for your site, we just need to add a file called missing_main.html to your directory. That page will be returned when a non-existent file is requested. Let us know if you are interested in that.
Thanks!
On 10/25, Simon Heseltine at Search Engine Guide released his own treatment of why you need custom 404 pages and some tips on styling them at http://www.searchengineguide.com/simon-heseltine/why-you-need-custom-404-pages.php