We've all seen them, 404 pages. On websites that are served by Windows servers it is a plain white page that has this text:
Error 404 - The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Please try the following:
If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
Open the www.mysite.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
Click the Back button to try another link.
This screams BORING and I have decided this year and into 2011, I will be campaigning (via Rocktime) to make our clients 404 pages more friendly, attractive and useful to visitors.
Anyone reading this can have a more attractive 'page not found page' on their site, you just need to ask your website host to set it up so you can use your own custom made 404 page, which makes it clear to users that they have indeed found the right website and have simply landed on the wrong page.
For usability I suggest you link your 404 page back to your home page or maybe provide a Sitemap too (that would be handy) or direct them to the inbuilt search engine built on your site.
Mashable recently shared 35 Entertaining 404 pages check them out here:
Hopefully our designer can pull something very special out of the bag, and we will appear on the Mashable list in the new year.
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