"get404notfoundpagestring.htm" What is this page?

[Sarah Atkinson]

I keep getting this page in my 404 error listings. What is it? I think that SEs are looking for it.
Sarah

[takagi]

A 404 error, is the error the browser or spider get when a non-existing page is requested. What do you see when you try to browse a non-existing page (e.g. www.mydomain.com/iiiindex.html) on your site? A warning by your browser (Internet Explorer?) or a special page for your site explaining the requested page doesn't exist and a link to your home page?

[takagi]

I received a stickymail with the URL, and it turned out that Google in the Esmeralda update indexed 3 pages with a customized 404 page.

When entering in Server Header Check [webmasterworld.com] the URL of a non-existing page:

http://www.example.com/company.htm

the new location is set to:

http://www.example.com//redirect.html?404;http://www.example.com/company.htm

but with a '200 OK'. The server is: Microsoft-IIS/5.0

The quickest solution is to locate where the links are to non-existing pages, and fix those links. The best solution is to also generate an 404 error instead of the 200. Maybe some other member at WW can help.

[pageoneresults]

Yup, returning a status 200 on a 404 page will cause some problems. I just did a quick check on one of my custom 404 configurations and this is what it returns...

HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 18:03:27 GMT
Content-Length: 40024
Content-Type: text/html

Here's a little more information if you are on a Windows Server...

Constructing a 404 Handler for IIS [xoc.net]

Possible related thread...

IIS Config for 404 Handler [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: pageoneresults at 6:17 pm (utc) on June 16, 2003]

[takagi]

Yup, returning a status 200 on a 404 page will cause some problems.

So what code is needed in this 'redirect.html' file (internal maybe 'redirect.asp') to get a 404?

<added>He, pageoneresults, was that link already there in msg 4, or was it added while I was typing?</added>

[pageoneresults]

The code will vary depending on what the desired effect is. I've posted some links above that should provide more information on how to set this up and what codes to use and when to use them. Since this is not my forte, I don't want to give information that may not be correct. I let my server admin take care of all this although I am learning each time we have to configure something. ;)

<added>He, pageoneresults, was that link already there in msg 4, or was it added while I was typing?</added>

Sorry about that, I added the links afterwards. A site search for iis 404 will bring up lots of great information pertaining to this.

[takagi]

No hard feelings. I was just surprised.

[Sarah Atkinson]

One thing I still don't underdstand is why is anyone searching for [mysite.com...]
in the first place?

[pageoneresults]

Sarah, they are not searching for the query string. Maybe you've moved or renamed some pages in the past few months that were listed in various indexes. Now that the page has moved or been renamed, the link references are still out there. So, when someone clicks on the old link reference, your server is returning the 404 page not found string. And, because it is returning a status 200 code instead of 404, the link references are not being updated.

You will continue to see these in your stats until you address the custom 404 issues.

[Sarah Atkinson]

ok
my custom 404 error pages is done trough my hosts control center. I have e-mailed there suport on how to fix the problem wheater it needs those ASP and XML pages put up there with that one program installed(somethign they would have to do) or if they have it built into there control center.

[pageoneresults]

Sarah, there probably isn't an immediate need to get into a full blown custom 404 handler. Your host should be familiar with setting one up using IIS if you are on a Windows Server. It takes about 30 seconds to do. They just need to make sure that the error is set up properly and returns a 404 status code in the server header.

You can point your 404 to your site-map.htm or a page that you can develop. You can name it 404.asp or whatever. Then you can include a brief message alerting the user that the page they requested was not found and direct them elsewhere.

In some instances, I might direct them to the site map and include a brief message at the top of the page indicating that they may have reached that page in error. Hopefully you have a site map that is well structured and can act as a table of contents for your site.

[Sarah Atkinson]

Thats what I have. its a page that says the page they were looking for has either been moved, deleted, or renamed and gives them a list of links that could be the page they were looking for.

What I would like is to have a way for if they look for
www.mysite.com/company.html then it automaticly goes to www.mysite.com/html/company.html

and I was wondering what the deal was with the get404notfoundpagestring.htm thing since only a couple of all the visits that were redirected to the 404 page showed that as the referel

[pageoneresults]

Send that request to your host and see if they are familiar with setting up custom 301 redirects. If you follow the links I posted above, you'll find some very good information on how to set them up in an IIS environment.