Have you optimized your blog’s 404 Error page? Some of you may ask what is that? It’s a page that is not accessible at the time of the browsing. Reasons for the inaccessibility may vary, it can be temporary or permanent.
For example, if you delete a post, then its address becomes permanently inaccessible. When you are doing some changes to your blog, some of your posts might be temporarily inaccessible. In both cases, users who wanted to view those particular pages, would be displayed 404 Error page instead.
Optimizing your blog’s 404 page
Error Pages on most sites are usually very dull and geeky. They are not so user-friendly to non-IT users. Actually, users do not need to know what error number it is when the document cannot be found on the server. They just need to be informed in a simple human language, e.g “page not found” or “file not found” etc. They couldn’t care less if it was a 1001 error page!
Recently, some websites started to come up with creative and interesting 404 pages, particularly Twitter and Technnorati.
But there is a better way of optimizing 404 pages for blogs, instead of just having a “cute” picture of porcupine fixing your blog, instead integrate some of your interesting posts below the 404 error. At least that way, you have a better chance of retaining that (lost) visitor.
Because if he came looking for something in your blog, probably he will find your other articles interesting too!!
Where is my 404 page?
Depending on what theme you are using (default or custom), you might and might not have 404 page in your blog. However, by default WordPress’ 404 page is located inside your theme files (see below).
So, just open it and edit it in your theme editor. You can manually integrate links to some of your popular articles or you can use plugin to call your popular posts in 404 pages.
WP Plugin: 404 Notifier
Want to track how many 404 hits your blog receives every day? Sure, there is an excellent WP-Plugin called 404 Notifier by
AlexKing. This plugin tracks 404 hits; where the user came from (referral url) and what page it tried to access but failed.
It can send the stats to your email or you can access the RSS feed that is generated by the plugin. Choosing RSS feed is a wise option, because email option keeps sending you notifications every time there is a 404 hit.
My blog gets about 70 hits, so guess what I found in my inbox the next day after I installed this plugin?
I wish Alex could introduce a new option; daily digest. That would be great.
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404 page strategies vary of course but I agree that simply leaving telling a potential reader that something simply can’t be found isn’t particular useful.
In my case, I give some tips to finding content on the site pointing out things like category listings and the search function for example.
Thank you. I did not even know that this can be done!
As a reader of blogs I have often come across error 404 messages and they have always been annoying. What you say here perhaps should reach a wider audience of bloggers so that it can be made into not such an annoying experience for visitors.
I didnt know about this either. Thank you for the post.
Great idea! But how exactly do you go about doing it? Is there a ready plugin that will display your most popular pages on the 404 error page?
While you’re at it, you should do the same for your wp-db.php file, which shows up when your MySQL database fails. I wrote a brief explanation of this custom error message here.
db
Nicole, depending on what theme you are using, there should be a 404 page inside your theme files. You can edit them manually through presentation > edit theme.
You could insert a code of your most popular plugin in this (404) page. Or you could list some of your posts manually.
Thanks David, that’s a useful info.
Ive tried using a 301 redirect on my 404 pages but google didn’t liked it.. My results in the SERPS dropped really fast :-(
this plugin is amazing! great find Ades and great article too, cheers!!!
Optimizing our 404 pages is a great way to stand out from the crowd at the moment!
Most websites not doing something with it or are unfamiliar with the 404 concept. I predict that will change soon when people find out more about it!
@David – Great tip and one I’ll implement this weekend after seeing a very quick glitch with my site’s database last night.
@Robert It was relatively easy to do on pre-2.3 installations, but I’m just looking at my own wp-db.php file now and not 100% sure where the bits I discussed need to go, it doesn’t have the wordpress png file hardcoded it seems…unless…I’m looking at the wrong file, will have to double check
db
good point about the visitor not caring what error it is. The pages from Technorati and Twitter were pretty clever. Thanks for the post – we’ll be updating or page shortly.
Mhhmm, so Google doesn’t like redirection on 404 pages huh? interesting. something to note for future.
Excellent plugin; It’s always good idea to take advantage of 404 page and show some creativity.
Here is the best 404 page ever
http://www.bluedaniel.com/404.shtml
Great plugin. Just downloaded & installed this plugin.
I must say i never really bothered much about 404 pages. Might follow your advise and sort something out.
If I can figure out how I will do something about mine. Thanks for the explanation.
Kool plugin..easy to work with..thanks for sharing with us :)
Is this error page 404 optimized? http://www.kontain.com/bickov/entries/36756/page-404/
With wordpress, everything seems so easy nowadays…
I recommend using 404 SEO Plugin or Smart 404 to manage your “lost” visitors.
404 SEO Plugin automatically display relevant posts links based on the kw in the URL, while the latter will scan your site using the URL kw to find a matching post and do a redirect.
Both work really well in my opinion.
I do see a lot of websites who seem to ignore their 404 error pages. This is not good. Often times, when people come across a ’404 Error Page’, what they’ll do is they will either close the web browser or return to the search engine to search for another website of the same topic. In this case, your website’s reputation is already affected.