Custom 404 Page vs Redirect to Home Page or Site Map

[Charles Bastari]

I'm trying to learn all I can about a custom '404 File Not Found' page. I've spoken with my host and he can do the .htaccess file thing, no problem. Now all I have to do is figure out what to do next and then how to put it all together.

There are references in the forum about redirecting to the home page or the site map rather than building a custom page. That would be the easy out, but in reading about this it seems that turning a 404 error response into a 200 ok response is not a good thing because the 404 error addresses would never, ever go away. A current (200 ok) page would always be returned. Also, a page within the site being continually returned when another page was being sought could be interpreted as a duplicate page spam attempt by the engines.

So, doesn't redirecting to a page within the site create the 404-200 scenario and is therefore not a good idea?

Am I on the right track here?

C

I couldn't resist posting the neatest 404 page I've ever seen.
http://www.clubkayak.com/missing.html

[pinbrook]

Personally I think a custom 404 page is best.

Then place a message on the custom page which says something like "Sorry due to website restructuring the page you were directed to no longer exists, please use the site map below to find a similar page on the site or click here to go to our home page"

Kill 3 birds with one page

[Mike Hughes]

I agree with Jo, use a custom 404 page.

Redirecting to the home page is likely to confuse the search engines, as they do ask for non-existent pages to see what the 404 page looks like so they can leave it out of their index.

Mike

[Charles Bastari]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinbrook
Kill 3 birds with one page

And so it is done.

Ta-Da
supplyspecialties.biz/Afghanistanbananastan

There really are several threads within that include advice to redirect to the home page or site map. After even more research on the subject I can't agree at all that it's a good idea.

C