How to Create a helpful 404 page

Things get lost, deleted, links point to the wrong location. These things happen. When they do it is best for the user experience to create a useful 404 Not Found page.

Unfortunately, developers will sometimes create a redirect or return a page without the 404 status code. This is called a soft 404 page, and it is bad. Don't do it!

Instead, make your 404 page helpful, but keep that 404 status code.

Creating a custom 404 page is very simple. First, create a page that will function as the 404 page. Then add the following code to your .htaccess file.

ErrorDocument 404 /error/custom404.php

You should change /error/custom404.php to the location of your 404 page.

You can set custom error pages for more than just 404 errors.

ErrorDocument 401 /error/custom401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /error/custom403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /error/custom404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /error/custom500.php
ErrorDocument 502 /error/custom502.php
ErrorDocument 503 /error/custom503.php
ErrorDocument 504 /error/custom504.php

You should note that if you have a 5XX Server Error your nice error page may not be able to be served. It depends on the exact nature of the error itself. However, you should create them anyway.