The Perfect Error 404 Page?

I'm sorry, but the page you are looking for is no longer here, but I would still like you to benefit from your experience of coming to David-Carter.com.

This page is what's called an Error404 page.

On most web sites, when you call up an incorrect page, you will simply get a generic message from your web browser stating "Eror 404".

This often causes users to navigate away from your web site and to find a site that's, in their mind, more reliable and robust.

Error Messages make people think that your site doesn't work properly!

If you place some useful information on a custom made page that matches your own site layout, then first, you don't lose a visitor and secondly, you can give them the opportunity to find the information they were looking for in the first place - a win-win situation.

For example, on this Error404 page, you can see my site navigation on the left hand side of the page and also, you can see the site map by clicking here.

That's got to be more useful than a simple, Error404 message hasn't it.

There are many reasons why you might get an Error404 message on a web site.

Firstly, the webmaster might have removed a file, or renamed it for some reason.

It could be that the user clicked on an out of date bookmark in his or her favourites list.

Maybe a search engine has an out of date listing for the site or, more commonly, the user simply mis-typed the address of the page on the site.

Either way, without a custom made Error404 page, many web sites are missing out on vital, hard-earned traffic - traffic that could be earning them additional revenue!

To get your web site to redirect visitors to your custom Error404 page is quite simple.

All you need to do, is to open a text editor such as Notepad and to create what is known as a .htaccess file.

Simply type this line into the first line on the page:

ErrorDocument 404 /error404.html (or whatever else you call your error page).

Save the file as .htaccess (not .txt) and then upload that to the html or home directory of your web site.

Don't forget to create and upload your error page - it can be a great marketing tool for you if done correctly.

Good luck!

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