Can any one tell me how to reduce 404 pages of a website? what are the steps I can follow to reduce the number of 404 pages. waiting for your replies.
I am not realy sure what you mean. As far as i know 404 pages are error pages. If you want to reduce them you have to fix your code. It's possible to define and design your own 404 pages however. Check out your cpanel. Many hosting companies offer a tool to design 404 pages.
MJ - as leftwheel has pointed out, you need to be more specific - and fix your code if you see that often. In fact 404 should be served only in rare conditions. If you could give examples of your site / 404 pages, perhaps we could tell you more!
If you don't have a robots.txt file -- add one. That alone will cut down on the number of false 404 errors. The next thing you'll need to do is go through every single link on your site (including links to files such as stylesheets, scripts, multimedia and images) to see which ones are broken. Once you find them, either fix them or throw up a page that tells the user the files no longer exist and ask them to either use the search form provided (if possible) or go to the home page. Then 302 redirect (yes, I said 302) those broken file links to the temporary page.