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Custom Error Pages

 
Have you ever clicked on a search engine link only to get an ugly "404" error message due to an out-of-date link?  Usually this is simply because the site's webmaster made changes to the website, but the search engine's robots / spiders / crawlers haven't been back to take a new snapshot of the site.  It happens, and there is really nothing we can do about that.  However, we can make the error page a bit more pleasing to the visitor, and offer an alternative link for them to follow.
 
Face it - most of us hit the "back" button when we encounter such an error, never to return to the site again.  Most people don't realize they can simply chop off the erroneous portion of the URL (everything to the right of the .com) and go to the site's default index page.  So it is up to you, the webmaster, to give them an easy link to your main site when they encounter an error page.  You can do this by creating custom error pages.  It really isn't that difficult to do...just follow these steps:
 
  1. Login to your control panel.
  2. Under "Site Management", click on "Custom Error Pages"
  3. Click on the type of error you want to customize.  We'll use 404 for our example.
  4. Enter your custom html code in the text box.  Or...
    1. Create a simple error page in FrontPage or any other html editor
    2. Make sure to provide a link to your main website (i.e., yourdomain.com)
    3. Copy and paste the html into the custom error page text box.
    4. If you want to include things like visitor IP addresses & requested URL, you can click on the appropriate buttons on the custom error editing page.  The tags will appear in the text box.  Simply cut and paste the tag wherever you want it to appear.
  5. Click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page - don't change the default filename.
  6. Go back and create a custom page for all the other error types.  Hint:  once you create one page, copy and paste it into the next custom error page, then make the appropriate changes to it.
That's all there is to it!  This is an easy way to add an extra touch of class to your website.  You'll have a much greater chance of bringing in the visitor.  Even though they encountered an error, if it is easy on the eyes and has a clearly labeled link to your home page, they will probably continue on to your site to attempt to find what they were searching for.
 
Here are a couple of final hints:  Don't overload the error pages with graphics or flashy scripts that may or may not work.  If you provide a logo, make sure to include the full URL to the graphic file.  I've included some example code below that was used on the VolcanoHost.com 404 error page.  Notice the logo file (cp.jpg) has "../" as part of the URL.  This is "shorthand" for the parent directory, which is where this particular graphic is located.  If this wasn't included, the logo would not appear if the visitor encountered the error page in a subdirectory.
 
To view this error page, click on this fake link:  http://www.volcanohost.com/fakefile.htm
 
HTML SNIPPET FOLLOWS:
 
<h1 align="left"><img border="0" src="../cp.jpg" width="135" height="73"> 
<font color="#5671A5">404 - Not Found</font></h1>
 
<br><br>
<p align="left"><b>Referring URL:<font color="#FF0000">  <!--#echo var="HTTP_REFERER" --></font><br>
Requested URL:<font color="#FF0000">  <!--#echo var="REQUEST_URI" --></font><br>
Visitor's IP:<font color="#FF0000">  <!--#echo var="REMOTE_ADDR" --></font></b></p>
<p align="center"> </p><br><br><br>
<p align="center"><font size="4">
[ <a href="http://www.VolcanoHost.com"> Home</a> ]<!-- Make sure you change this link to YOUR site's address--->
</font>
 
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