Larry’s Computer Class

Creating a custom 404 Error Page

Have you ever enter a web address into your browser and received a 404 error page saying page not found? This is bad for your website and your visitors. It is also bad when Google crawls your site. Create a custom 404 page so your visitors do not have to see this page.

The first thing to do is create a page that looks like the rest of your website, this give the feeling to you visitors that they are still on your website. Example: www.larryscomputerclasses.com/error.php After creating your custom page upload it to your host. Simply add a couple of lines telling your visitors that they have come to a 404 error page and give them a link to click on that will bring them back to your main page for example. I have also read some articles where people have set up this 404 error page to send an email to them so they now what page is not working on their website. This is up to you how you set it up. Just remember to make the page look like pages on your site.

If you already have a .htaccess files just add this code to it.

ErrorDocument 404 /error.php

Note at the end of the code error.php must be whatever you name your custom 404 file, it can be anything you want but it must be the same file name here.

If you do not have a .htaccess file created just create one with your editor, notepad or whatever editor you us. It is important that the .htaccess file does not have a file extension. After you create your .htaccess file and upload it to your host check and make sure that a file extension has not been added. If one has then just go to rename files and remove the extension.

THANK YOU

For other articles also see previous tutorials.