Several months ago, I switched blogging software. As a result of that, several links from other web pages and blogs were no longer valid. At the time, I was not fully aware of this. Had I been, I would have set my URL’s up to look like the old ones. Once I knew what was going on, it became a question of do I go back to the old URL’s and save my old links (at the expense of the new links) or do I just leave it and move on. I choose to do the latter, and move on.
After many month, I still see the occasional bad link in my stats, knowing full well that I have lost a potential reader. Therefore I decided to customize my 404 – not found page with some information about the blog and some instructions on what to do if, in the unlikely event of a spelling or typing error, you have landed there.
The first thing I did was to give the error code and explanation. I feel that this is important. Next I apologized to the reader. They are likely already disappointed, frustrated or angry that they have not found what they are looking for. If they have not already left the page and have read that far, I then describe three options for finding what they are looking for;
- Use the search box
- Look through the categories
- Look through the tag cloud
Since a tag all of my posts for the most relivent items, there are usually several tags attached to each post. This would give them several options to find the post somewhere in the tag cloud.
I have noticed that about half the people who land on the 404 – not found page end up following the instructions, looking for and finding the post they originally searched for.
I use a wordpress plugin called Simple Tagging to generate the tag cloud and all the tagging information on my posts. It works very well.
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That’s an interesting point there. Will add a tag cloud soon to my blog’s 404 page.
Thanks for the heads up.
BTW, Came here via Problogger :)
That’s an interesting point.
I was thinking of putting a list of most visited or most commented posts in 404 but was wondering how it was going to enhance the visitor experience. Tag cloud can be nice addition.
I was reading up on customizing 404 pages and I thought a tag cloud would make it really easy to find topics of the reader was so inclined. It also allows you to have a really big tag cloud, instead of a narrow skinny one in the side bar. Thanks for the comments.
Excellent idea. I made a cheesy flash 404 page on my first blog. I think it’s time for an upgrade :-)
http://golfcomplex.com/404
My other blogs have the default 404’s Thanks for the tip.
The 404 error pages are a good thing to customize, as is all the other types of error pages too, I often find that wasted traffic is potentially a fatal thing for your website or blog, because what iof you could have a couple of new readers who are really going to find your blog useful and they have loads of friends who are also interested in your blogs content and then they tell their friends and other associates…
It would be devastating on a par of having the numbers to the lottery but never registering a ticket!
Cheers for the great reminder on this!
I ran into the same problem recently. I chose to redirect the missing pages to their new or equivalent page. The 404 page seems like a much better solution. I’ll need to take another look.