The 404 or Page Not Found error is an HTTP standard response code that
appears on your Internet browser when certain situations occur. In laymen’s
terms, this is an automatic error page that gets displayed if any of the
following instances take place:
- the server couldn’t find the exact page you’ve requested
- the server was programmed not to show the page you’ve requested and without saying why
- the searcher has misspelled the URL of the page or isn’t sure of the exact
URL he’s looking for
- the page requested for has a broken link
- the page requested may have been moved, replaced, or deleted
404 errors shouldn’t occur in the first place and you can get started on
working towards this critical goal by considering the following suggestions.
Redirection for Every Modification: Changing, replacing, moving, or deleting
a page in your website is inevitable. But losing the traffic from it isn’t. Every
time you perform modifications on your website, never ever take the entire
page down. Instead, use it to redirect people to your main website together
with an offer to contact you for more information. What matters is letting
them know you’re willing to do what you can to accommodate their request.
Resubmit for Updated Indexing: Submit modified pages to wherever you’ve
submitted them before so that the necessary parties will be updated
regarding the changes you’ve made. This move will also let search engine
spiders know about such changes.
Make an Announcement: Let people know about pages you’ve modified,
replaced, or moved. You can do this with your mailing list or by placing the
announcement on your homepage. But don’t let them know if you’ve taken
down a page because that has negative connotations more often than not.
Monitor Page Listings: If you’re listed anywhere, remember to check them
once a while. This prevents you from overlooking any instance where other
websites are linking to your page only to have readers end up landing on a
404 page.
Be Efficient and Organized: List every page you make for your website. If
you’ve modified it in any way, list this and do whatever you need to prevent
it from incurring a 404 page for others.
Contact Your Host for 404 Help: Some web hosts will automatically redirect
lost visitors to your homepage. This is one of the easiest ways to prevent
people from landing on a 404 page. Of course, the web hosts part ends
there. After that, its up to you what to do with your readers when they get
to your home page.
Don’t Let Them Know Its a 404 Page
Just because its called a 404 page and is displayed when a 404 occurs
doesn’t mean you have to name the page 404. What people don’t know
won’t hurt them and just as long as your customized 404 page ends up
pleasing your visitors then there’s no harm done, is there?
Keep the Page Simple
Don’t waste peoples time. Keep the page and formatting simple and give
them your customized 404 message in a straightforward manner. Keeping it
brief, of course, doesn’t mean you have to ignore courtesy. Make sure you
let them know you’d more than welcome any correspondence from them
regarding the matter.
Read more:
>-Easy Ways to Get Forum Traffic
<-How to Generate Social Traffic
How to Avoid 404 Error Pages
