Create custom 404 Error Pages

[mustaq]

Create custom 404 Error Pages

Whenever a user mis-spells a page or foldername of a website, they get an error message. Some are simple server-generated ascii ones, and some are a full-featured page informing you of what you may have dont wrong and how to get back to a real page.

404 Error pages are pages you can make that replace the server generated one, and they are not difficult to make - 3 steps

Step 1
Make a webpage with whatever you want on it, (i would suggest it informs the user they they may have misspelled the adress, and giving it links to some of your other pages), and save it as 404.htm Upload it to your main folder (the one with index.html in it)

Step 2
For this step you must be the owner of the site's host. Go to the index folder via ftp/telnet and there should be a file called ".htaccess". If you dont have one there, create one (chmod it to 644 if you create a new one)

Edit this file in a plain-text editor. Look for this line and edit it, if the line isn't there at all than simply add it.
ErrorDocument 404 /404.htm
(This is case sensitive)

Step 3
Test it! Type http://www.yourwebistename.com/somerandomkeys and your 404 error page should be up and running.

Source
Source 2

[Source link added -Darren]

[lordshaun]

this was really helpful