404 Page not found

What is the code to put into .htaccess file in order to make all the people go to the main index page if then stumble upon a 404 Page not found? Is there another way of doing it?

 

You don't want to do it like that. Setup a custom 404 error page and redirect your visitors to that page.

 

Yes you make a .htaccess file and 404.php if you dont know how to do this you can see a tutorial here http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/custom404.shtml

 

I use this code in my .htaccess

ErrorDocument 404 /sitemap.php?id=404

Code (markup):

Then on my sitemap page add a few lines of text above the sitemap if its a 404 page.

<?php
if(isset($_GET['id']) && $_GET['id'] == "404")
{
     print '<h1>Error!</h1>';
     print '<p>The page you were looking for was not found on our server.<br />';
     print 'Please browse our sitemap below to find what you were looking for.</p>';
}
?>

PHP:

 

rspenc29 has a very good way of doing it, i also use this way but also make it send me an email upon reciving this error.