404 error page question

michael26a · Jul 26, 2011

I've decided to create some 404 error pages for my websites. I'm just wondering, what is the best way to do this?

Which error page format is best?

1) Is it best to have a standard 404 error page with a default message, and a link back to the home page? E.g. Page not found, click here to return to the home page

2) Or should someone just set up their 404 to redirect directly to the homepage (without the need for an error page).

I'm not sure if the second option is SEO friendly, so would love to hear some opinions on this. Cheers

felku · Jul 26, 2011

sorry for asking this, but what is 404 error?

preditor · Jul 26, 2011

404 -page not found - pages are working best with a message like "page not found, return to the previus page / homepage and also a report dead link or try to do a search - is good stuff on that page.
Google Guide: Webmaster Tools, Help <--- 404 page

preditor · Jul 26, 2011

Forgot to say that the 404 redirect directly is not a good idea, use meta refresh content with 5-10 seconds and
with the message page not found and "you will shortly be redirected to the homepage" instead since its god for bouth the visitors and the bots to understand that the reguested page is missing and if you use google webmaster tools you can see what pages and urls are 404´s

**Edited**

felku · Jul 26, 2011

I didn't know thanks for the info i will try to do one

Renee · Jul 27, 2011

I would suggest a 404 error page that displays your sitemap. That way if the page has moved they will be able to find it easily rather than being redirected to a page they may not want to go to and therefore leave your site all together.

JMO.

michael26a · Jul 27, 2011

Renee said:
I would suggest a 404 error page that displays your sitemap. That way if the page has moved they will be able to find it easily rather than being redirected to a page they may not want to go to and therefore leave your site all together.

JMO.

That's brilliant advice, much better than having a plain link to the home page lol

Cheers Renee

preditor · Jul 27, 2011

Just be carefull when using a sitemap in 404 so it does not get indexed as a "real page" leading to high rankings for it on the searchengines that shows your 404 page.

The 404 page should be as simple as possible, relevant to the visitor to understand that the page was not found and using some basic links to search/sitemap/homepage.
The 404 is not a page that you design, make nice, have interesting stuff etc. Anything attractive on that page causes more harm than god for you, so keep it as simple as possible and try to avoid visitors clicking on broken links by checking your links! Simple as that

Displaying or including a sitemap on that contains 20+ links or what ever you got (iwe got 500+) can be very bad for searchengines in many ways.
- Duplicate content with your existing sitemap, and if your html codes are not right with the 404 headers the bots might not like it at all and your overall rankings might drop in the searchengines.

also as a webmaster and if i were a visitor at your page and would know that your 404 contains a easy and simple sitemap of your homepage i would save many seconds to type /kjabshd in the url to get to that page instead of using page.com/search.php | site.com/sitemap.php.

Just thoughts

Renee · Jul 28, 2011

Theoretically though, you should be designing your site for visitors, not for the search engines

preditor · Jul 28, 2011

Your right Renee but it has to be with proper 404 codes for the crawlers ;D

btw: hongkiat.com/blog/49-nice-and-creative-error-404-pages

Aussie-Dave · Jul 28, 2011

decided to take this to the affiliate programs forum here at AGD

Simmo! · Jul 28, 2011

preditor said:
Just be carefull when using a sitemap in 404 so it does not get indexed as a "real page" leading to high rankings for it on the searchengines that shows your 404 page.

Good advice there - and from Renee. The way to avoid this would be to add a META Noindex tag in the <head> section although as long as the page serves the 404 code then that shouldn't be a problem.

As previously mentioned, that's the important part: that the page returns the server code 404 Not Found and not a 200 OK! Plenty of advice on this and ways to check in Google.

Aussie-Dave · Jul 28, 2011

Simmo! said:
as long as the page serves the 404 code...that's the important part: that the page returns the server code 404 Not Found and not a 200 OK!

Using a custom 404 as aposed to the generic one is really important these days. Google, Yahoo and Bing all send out random page names to test how a site handles 404 errors.

I don't recommend using one of your pages which also has banners promo links on it. I use a theme of the page but strip all advertising content, leaving only links of my site available.

Cheers

Dave

casinorecommender · Jul 29, 2011

It is always best to...

Place the "back to main page" link with your logo .

michael26a said:
I've decided to create some 404 error pages for my websites. I'm just wondering, what is the best way to do this?

Which error page format is best?

1) Is it best to have a standard 404 error page with a default message, and a link back to the home page? E.g. Page not found, click here to return to the home page

2) Or should someone just set up their 404 to redirect directly to the homepage (without the need for an error page).

I'm not sure if the second option is SEO friendly, so would love to hear some opinions on this. Cheers

404 error page question

michael26a

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felku

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preditor

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preditor

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felku

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Renee

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michael26a

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preditor

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Renee

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preditor

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Aussie-Dave

Former AGD Member

Simmo!

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Aussie-Dave

Former AGD Member

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