Design for "page not found"

[Rich Atkins]

Hi
I'm about to load v9 and replace loads of non-Actinic content with Actinic brochure pages (following some sound advice here on the forum!).

Is there a thread anywhere on how to create a "page not found" which resembles my shop?

Thanks and regards

[leehack]

404 is the technical term for it, try searching for 404* or 404 Page Not Found.

[Darren B]

The easiest way is to view a page online from your site, view the source and copy it. Then use this to create your 404 page.

You may need to edit it a bit but its the easiest way of creating a matching page.

there are other ways but this is a good place to start

[Rich Atkins]

Like all good ideas, they sound so simple when you have it explained to you... Homer Simpson "Doh!" moment coming on!

[jont]

Latest issue of .NET magazine has a design-off from 3 leading design companies on 404 erorr pages.

[Mark H]

It sounds obvious, but one of the biggest mistakes with a 404 page which matches the website (complete with all the images, links, buttons etc) is to put the "sorry, the page you are looking for doesn't exist etc" in really small light coloured text and bury it. You get to the page and think "What am I looking at??". Make it BIG & BOLD.

[Duncan Rounding]

Latest issue of .NET magazine has a design-off from 3 leading design companies on 404 erorr pages.

I especially liked the ape on the loo. LOL

[Mark H]

How about this:

http://thestumponline.com/poop

and more like it from:

http://www.plinko.net/404/links.asp?type=cat&key=13

[jont]

I especially liked the ape on the loo. LOL

My favourite also

[jont]

I like the new FF3 warnings using about:config

Gabe must have written these

[pinbrook]

2 more ideas...

create a brochure page, preview the page, then take the resultant hrml from the preview folder and use it outside of actinic (be careful of actinic created navigation as this page will not auto update)

or simply use your hosting control panel to redirect all 404 errors to acatalog/index

The later is what I tend to do, it does have one disadvantage that people just get dumped to the index page if they are trying to view a page that has been removed that they have cached for example, but at least it removes a click and puts people in a place to move forward from ie with left hand nav