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Creating User Friendly 404 Pages
codinghorror.com — We understand what 404 means: page not found. But pity the poor, typical user, who has no idea what 404 means or what to do about it. It's just another unintelligible error message from the computer. Most 404 pages are unvarnished geek-speak. Stop relying on the default behavior of any webserver or web browser and create your own user friendly 404.
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- rEvolution3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Very good page, and something everyone should know.. but.. they skipped the 404-as-handler option. Installing a script that can auto-redirect. In example.. you include a link to foo/1/0/2/0/.. when the user follows it, the web server sends it to your 404 handler, which parses 'foo' as a particular subset of pages, 1 as some other category and so on.. so sending someone to foo/1/0/2/0 could be the legitimate call for your blog's archive of pics from your first month of operation.
- superpotential, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17... alternatively, fix all your broken links and nobody should ever get a 404 unless they are trying something that is not intended
- Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Why doesn't this guy practice what he preaches: http://www.codinghorror.com/gimme-a-404/
/Pot calling the kettle black. - shit, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20"Unfortunately, I haven't had time to implement a better 404 page on my own website. Yet."
/Read the article - kalleanka, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I completely disagree about that the string "404" should not appear at all on the website.
I think by today 404 has been used so widely that most surfers immediately know that a 404 page means that the page does not exist and the page they are viewing is some kind of "default 404 page". I don't want to waste 30 seconds to try to figure out if the site I'm viewing is missing or if it is the page I was actually looking for. - shagmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Should have added one thing I find annoying - websites that redirect the user to a default error page or the index page. Sometimes it just might be a typo in the URL I can quickly fix, but not so easily if it's been redirected.
- Easty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26I quite like b3ta.com's 404.
http://b3ta.com/404- merkul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Pretty funny collection, kinda NSFW due to large flashing curse words. I doubt anyone is working on a Sunday anyway ;)
- LouCypher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I prefer this:
http://squarefree.com/404
- pwnadog, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Well, it's not user-friendly, but hey.
http://www.pwnadog.com/haythispagedoesntexist - Adrianc333, on 10/12/2007, -4/+35Ironically, they also have a standard 404.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000819.htmlsdfgsdgsome404- magicmarc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16True, but:
"Unfortunately, I haven't had time to implement a better 404 page on my own website. Yet." - HUKI365, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2A fact he mentions in TFA.
- qbelek2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22even if he mentions that, one should not give advice if he's to lazy to follow them himself.
By the way that whole "404 error page with 404 on it is an outright failure" is just dumb. I would even say that too custom error pages slow people down... If I spot big juicy "404" on a web page I immediately know what happened and how to fix it. If there is some fancy pong game and the error message is in form of a poem although its fun, it just waste my time... - tavisjohn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@magicmarc
He should have taken the time to make a better 404 page and installed it BEFORE posting about how the default 404 is sooo evil.
The fact that he has not even replaced his default 404 with a simple replacement 404 that matches his site makes his ENTIRE article meaningless! How am I susposed to take advice from someone who does not even do it THEMSELVES!!! It is like having your doctor tell you to quit smoking and go on a diet, while he is smoking and eating a whole chocolate cake!!!!
Now I would love to have this 404 page:
http://thcnet.net/zork/index.php
If you can not make it helpfull, at least give them something to do!!! - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5http://www.digg.com/error
digg has a decent 404
- magicmarc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16True, but:
- gnyffel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17http://people.freebsd.org/~wilko/stuff.html
Marvin would make an excellent webserver. Please don't make him serve up 404's, it gets him so depressed. :(- Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 The Marvin 404 will always be my favorite.
- Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 The Marvin 404 will always be my favorite.
- aim2future, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I definitely not agree that the error number 404 should be removed as was suggested.
Even though there are a lot of people out there that doesn't care about error numbers, an error number is an exact and accurate piece of information. There are actually several possible reasons that a page can not be displayed and the error code is the most accurate way to describe this. - svenjick, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Dupe topic, but excellent observations.
- adsoftheworld, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I'm sure there are better ways to handle this but for now, I simply forward all 404 to a search page: http://adsoftheworld.com/anythinghere
- chrillen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1404 is the creation of the devil.
- guillem, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Scary messages are MUCH funnier :-P
http://bulma.net/asdf - Digisphere, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/9999.html Blog it, but don't use it....
- Rivetgeek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19Once upon a midnight dreary, as I porn-searched, weak and weary, o'er many a strange and spurious site of hot XXX galore. But when I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my lost amore. "Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my free hardcore!"
Quote the server: 404 - AustinMeoang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17http://www.homestarrunner.com/404
- zhulien, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0the less crap on the error page, the more user friendly it is - no way is the provided examples user friendly.
- redwallhp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Wouldn't it be ironic if you got a 404 when you tried to access their post?
- illegal_op, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I love creative error pages. like this one. http://www.retronintendo.com/notfound.html
(I made it so I'm biased) - gingernut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I disagree that '404' should not be displayed on the 404 error page. I have found this handy if the page is written in a foreign language. Almost everyone knows what '404' is even if you can't read the language.
- antonbondar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2second of all, who even cares about 404 pages?
why even bother, let's just talk about ubuntu, right? - tomisina, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1my 404 page is... "Lost?! Try Google maps."
- uncoolcentral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://www.uncoolcentral.com/errors/404.html
- nubnub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3http://adam.areyouserios.com/error
- Cause_of_death, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"its". Possessive pronoun (page possesses name - "its name"). No apostrophe. That is all.
- rubah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't really see the point in forbidding the use of the number "404" on a 404 error page, because if we do that, how will people ever be intrigued by the whole status code schema where they start to make such sexual jokes as "Remember that guy Tom? Well he tried to get it on with this girl on his floor, but she gave him a 402, so he turned her in to the cops" Or perhaps that girl gave him a 411 or 417. Odds are there wasn't a 413 involved.
Then again, my 404 page does not say 404, but I think maybe I will tweak it so that it does. But also look into some of the other stuff mentioned; those make more sense than the 'lol get rid of the error code'. - ishmal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1From the text, his big assumption is that there is a single purpose for the site. And being a blogger, it looks as if his audience are all using CMS's. So his suggestions should be seen in that light. Although content-managed sites are very common, still, every site needs a context-free 404 page.
- AttackingHobo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.hrawl.com/thisisnotapagethatdoesexistwhatnostopit.html
- digginestdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.plinko.net/404/doesnotexist
- kennymiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wordpress.com sites have sweet 404 pages...
http://singlesatevfree.wordpress.com/error - HungSquirrel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From TFA:
"I found that Jakob Nielsen, A List Apart, and 404 Research Lab also had good advice on making 404 pages potentially user friendly instead of the geeky, incomprehensible dead end signs they usually are."
I glanced at the 404 Research Lab article:
http://www.plinko.net/404/howto.asp?article=2
Out of curiosity, I checked to see if they had a custom error message for 404 errors that reference their asp scripts:
http://www.plinko.net/404/howto.asp?article=yourmom
"Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'
Type mismatch: '[string: "yourmom"]'
/404/howto.asp, line 5 "
Kind of hard to take these guys seriously. - Iwantawii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nothing to imply arguments for either side of the Safari/Firefox debates but it's interesting to see that these companies decided not to customize 404 errors, given their ongoing mission of striking a balance between user interface (simplicty) and user control.
- mesoed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can't go wrong with Homestar Runner's 404...
http://www.homestarrunner.com/fjs - chrissywolff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here's a good one with a twist from Greenpeace
http://www.fishing-vessel-whitelist.org/ - gesturemaker, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Perfect! I'm not impressed. Not even a bit.
- qmpeople, on 02/22/2008, -0/+0Hello guys, I used this tecnique since 2003 o my webcommunity http://www.qmpeople.com to dinamically build user's personal pages and other custom applications. I think that in that manner is possible to avoid ISAPIs
- mydave, on 07/29/2008, -0/+0oh great. I find someone who talk about 404 error. in this site there are a lot of 404 errors!
http://pmidsig.org/08_2003.shtml
http://www.crestonepeak.org/
http://www.ocflex.com
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