Create your Own Custom 404 Error Page (Most Recommended SEO tip)

The Error 404 “Page not found” is the error page displayed whenever someone asks for a page that’s simply not available on your site. The reason for this is that there may be a link on your site that was wrong or the page might have been recently removed from the site. As there is no web page to display, the web server sends a page that simply says “404 Page not found”.

I come to know about this when i was analyzing my Google Webmaster and saw Crawler Error and after clicking and that what i saw that was worrying for me. here is the screenshot of my Google Webmaster.

404 Error should not come if you want Google Page Rank. Because Google always keep analyzing how good the material you have on your site and how good your visitor feel when they come to your site. This is most annoying when user see Error 404 page. So what should we do so that our visitor never encounter this error page. Here are some most useful tips.

1. Modifying your .htaccess file

Create a file called 404.html(or whatever you want to call it) with whatever you want your visitors to see when they hit a missing page. A small sitemap and / or search is a nice idea, along with letting them know the file they requested is not available. For this do the following

1. Make a page giving information whatever you want ( sitemap, archive or any message )
2. Save the page as 404.html by going into  Tools>Web Developer>Page Source in Firefox.
3. Upload this page into public_html (using FileZilla or cPanel)

To begin open up your .htaccess file if you already have one. This file resides in your public_html folder and usually a hidden file. To enter in this file Login into your cpanel and go to file manager (don’t forget to click on show hidden files). After opening the file put this code in this file.

ErrorDocument 404 /404.html

You can name your error file whatever you’d like and use whatever extension you are most comfortable.

2. Using cPanel

I am using HostGator as my Hosting Provider so i am putting tutorial for HostGator. You can see this tutorial also.

1. Login to your cPanel
2. goto Advance > Error Page as shown below

1. Select your Domain
2. Select 404 (Not Found)
3. Put any HTML code which you want to display
4. click SAVE button

3. WordPress Plugin

404 Redirect can be easily done with the help of WordPress Plugin. This plugin will redirect your visitor to your homepage when he/she will visit a non existing page. I am using this plugin in my blog.

 Hope this will work for you. if have any issue just ask me in comment box.

All the Best !!