Customized 404 pages

What's the benefit?

[neophyte]

Other than the fact that generic 404 error pages are ugly - and maybe throws the potiential visitor off, are there any solid, business-related reasons to create a customized 404 error page? LIke for search engine spiders and the like?

Neophyte

[jdMorgan]

> are there any solid, business-related reasons to create a customized 404 error page?

Lack of a friendly error page (in your words) "throws the potential visitor off."

It's not difficult to implement a custom 404 page that offers a site map or similar helpful resource.

Throwing a potential visitor off is a pretty solid "business-related reason" to have a custom page in my book.

Jim

[digitalv]

A good practice is to make a custom 404 page identical to your sitemap. That way if you ever re-organize your site (or someone just links to a page incorrectly) if that link is ever followed the visitor or search spider will be able to follow the correct links through your site.

You can also do some dynamic stuff with 404's, like redirecting to appropriate content based on the URL they were trying to go to (or came from). All in all it's a good thing to do.

[neophyte]

jdMorgan and digitalV -

Points well taken. Thanks for your input.