creating a custom 404 error page

[susan]

While I was loking at my websites performance in nibbler

one thing poped up

Ensure your web server returns a 404 HTTP status code for error pages

how do i do this and is it important ??

[Artisan]

Check your hosting package, a 404/505 script is often provided, sometimes with an auto-install.

[Phil H]

Custom 404 page

I did this and it works now. I had some tweaking to do but it works. I recently changed sites but did not want to lose anyone with old link addresses or old urls or have google ads from our competitors popping up on a non custom 404 page!!!

Our pages http://www.natalhypnotherapy.co.uk/s...her-pages.html

here is one helpful thread I think there is another one
http://community.sellerdeck.com/arch...p/t-33443.html

1)You need to create a htaccess file and have it in your root directory. It then acts like a pointer so if someone searches for a known page, a page that was there but now is not, a page which does not exist, htaccess provides the rules of where to send the site user.

2) Create a page on your site in SellerDeck, call it something helpful in the title like 404 error - we can't find the page you are looking for, save it in sellerdeck. Get the url for the page and add that to the htaccess file. Google htaccess as there are some helpful posts and guides on editing it.

3) publish to web, and test it. I.e. put in a page you know does not exist in the url at the top. if it routes to your 404 page it works, if it does not then you have got something wrong and need to re tweak it.

Good luck.


Phil