Topic: Custom 404 Error Page

[ZarPrime]

Nice one Steve !!!  The only thing I would consider doing is maybe centering the image in the article.  Otherwise, 

[Skhilled]

I had Les enlarge it for me so now it is bigger but still need to add the text.

[Ken (OP)]

Whoops!!!

Just fixing the error page, but...
Forgot about this part:

Hi Ken,

No, that's not correct. You should have this:

ErrorDocument 404 /FamilyForum/index.php?page=208

@Skhilled

Steve, this information may be needed for you to correctly set your 404 redirect.


I posted on the Google 'Webmaster' support forums and was told that my code was wrong and should be as follows:

Hi Ken,

No, that's not correct. You should have this:

ErrorDocument 404 /FamilyForum/index.php?page=208

(You're mixing up a 301 redirect with the ErrorDocument directive.)

Also you must not include the full URL in an ErrorDocument directive or you won't get the all-important 404 status code: it will do a 302 redirect instead (which is what it does right now), which will screw your site up.

Modify as I've suggested and then check the HTTP headers to ensure it's sending a 404 code as well as serving up the 404 page:

Check the headers with one of these tools...
Live http headers (a Firefox browser addon_: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/live-http-headers/
Rex Swain's http viewer: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
Web sniffer: http://web-sniffer.net/

After making the change to my .htaccess file the error page call works as it should. (the support helper had me run a check to see how Google was reading the page call)
You can find the support topic at this link...
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/webmasters/8KmJGnTDl4s/bwj4E9U4d-gJ

[Ken (OP)]

Resurrecting this old topic because I just discovered that our super cool 404 error page was not being called up on page errors! 

Needed the code added back into the .htaccess... fixed now. 
https://www.ourfamilyforum.org/FamilyForum/index.php?page=208

[Skhilled]

Cool, but now it shows up when you login. LOL

[Ken (OP)]

Me don't know how to fix that. 

[Skhilled]

I just logged in and it didn't show up this time. Go figure...

EDIT: I just logged out and back in but this time I used the TP block to login and it did it.

Just did it again to me using the login in the main menu...

[Skhilled]

 shocked028I have fixed this to the standard 404 page:

https://www.ourfamilyforum.org/FamilyForum/404.shtml

I've commented out the .htaccess line to the TP article. I think there may be a TP issue with it running from within .htaccess.

[Ken (OP)]

Good deal. 

The new 404 page will need some navigation links added in... me can do that. 
EDIT: ... after the NASCAR race that just started!

[Skhilled]

LOL, I just realized that myself while sitting here cooking and playing a game.