404 error pages

A 404 error page is the destination reached by a visitor of a website who didn’t find what he was looking for. A metaphor: a driver follows a path and reaches a dead end. What comes next? He turns back. Fortunately things can be better in the Web.

There are several reasons why a visitor may be found in a 404 error page:

• Because of a bad link.
• Because of a mistake while typing in the address bar.
• Because of a page which has been removed from the website

Like Jacob Nielsen says:

Users are one click away from leaving your website.

As a result, when a visitor comes to a dead end, his next action is most probably to go away. We don’t want this, right? Moreover, we do need to make our websites friendlier anyway. This is why our 404 pages should be more usable.

Actually, a 404 error page can be decorated the way we want. It is up to the designer. Some people include a link to the homepage, some others a search form and others the whole sitemap of the website.

You can take a look at my 404 error page. Notice that the link sends you to a lala.php page. Which doesn’t exist of course. So you are automatically driven to the 404 page. I tried to create a humorous one but it could be anything.

The idea is to make your visitor feel fine with your website even if he reaches a dead end. Just like a good road network should help drivers to find their way a website should foresee errors and help visitors find what they are looking for.

There are a lot more that could be mentioned about 404 error pages. Smashing Magazine holds all the details.