404 Not Found Page

I would like to know people's opinions. Do you think it is best to redirect pages not found back to your default page, or to have a custom 404 Not Found page?

 

Redirect the page, that is best..!

 

Good to redirect back to a default or custom page. It is industrial standard and good practise too !!

 

If it is a general mistake by the visitor: Custom 404 page c/w matching navigation to the original site. Include a search function on the page.

If you moved a page: 301 permanent redirect to the new location

If you removed the page: 1st choice to 301 permanent redirect to a similar topic page. 2nd choice to the category page for the section of the site it was in. Last choice to your home page.

 

Actually, no. You should tell users that the page has not been found so that they know what is going wrong instead of blindly redirecting to your homepage (if I interpreted your question right).

Here are the 404 pages of the top 5 sites (Alexa). Here, you will see that their 404 pages don't redirect and tell you whats going wrong.

http://www.google.com/some-non-existent-page
https://www.facebook.com/some-non-existent-page
http://www.youtube.com/some-non-existent-page
http://www.yahoo.com/some-non-existent-page
http://www.blogger.com/some-non-existent-page

They all say something like "Sorry, page could not be found" and then the user will know what happened and go back to the page they were previously on.

 

I have to agree with the above poster; I think it's better to have a custom 404 page to inform the user that the page doesn't exist. In the past, I've clicked on the same broken link several times because I didn't understand that being redirected to the homepage meant that the link was broken. Not everyone is aware of this 'convention'.

 

This is perfect for forums, blogs and sites with lot of content...Besides search you can show them your website categories...any thing which can help them navigate to what they were looking for...

 

I would say redirect back to the main page, but if your going to use a 404 page make it very creative and fun. I feel like people would be more interested in that and getting back to your site than a typical 404 page.

 

Why wouldn't you have a 404 page? What about those visitors that just made a plain old mistake like typing the url wrong? Or the person who provided the link elsewhere made a typo?

 

Well, it is of course the best idea so your viewers will see a designed pages on not found links as well and hence will make good impression.

 

I use to design a custom 404 but that after 15 secs redirects people to home page...

 

you create cutom page for 404...that page contain your website information to divert visitors on your website.

 

custom 404 page is definitely more professional than redirection...

 

Remove errors from your website should be your first priority or block these kind of pages from index.

 

redirect to custom page.

 

Personally, i would recommend you redirecting them back to the index page.

 

Great and Good explaination. Very informative one.

Thanks elassoto because of you I also get to know this.

Thank a lot to All of you who have helps us in knowing this term more clearly. Now I have no doubts regarding this.

 

You NEED a 404 page. At least you are acknowledging people that the page their looking for is not available rather than blindly returning to the default page which make them wonder if the website you are building is wrong or something.

 

Absolutely perfect

 

i think custom 404 Not Found page is best for SEO point of view.