What do you think? Obviously the default browser 404 error page is usless. So whats better? Making a custom 404 page, Or just redirecting back to your site index? Cheers guys.
I think it's better to have a custom 404 page and then let the user know 'hey, you went here, but it doesn't exist anymore, so maybe check out the homepage' or something like that. Just so the user knows -- because obviously they know it doesn't exist, but often they will just close the site. If you give them a way home, they are more likely to stay on te site. Plus, if you use a custom 404, search engines will know that the pages don't exist anymore and will delist them in the index. Usually good to use a header() status==404 in there too on the 404.php or something. you could use .htaccess: ErrorDocument 404 /404.php then header("status == 404") (I forget the real php, but you can look it up) works nicely. just my 2 cents
maybe show a 404 page to let the user now that the page doesn't exist anymore and then refresh to the homepage after 5 seconds. If you take him to the index page automatically he'll think that he didn't click on "go" on the address bar and will do it again.