July 22, 2014

Lend a Helping Hand: Building a Helpful 404 Error "Page Not Found" Screen

I know you — you’re a web content manager who really knows her stuff and cares about her website. You’ve gone through your homepage and deleted any content that isn’t really providing value. You’ve watched your Google Analytics to identify your most common search results, and made sure to highlight that content to make it easier to find. You run a broken link checker every month and fix any broken links you find on your website. Your job is to provide value to your customers (constituents, in the public sector), hold their hands, and help them through your website, all without ever meeting or talking to them. And you’re good at it.

But there’s one thing that probably hasn’t even crossed your mind, and that’s where your site visitors go when they’ve hit a broken link within your website. You know, the Page Not Found screen. The 404 Error page. Across Georgia.gov (that’s all 70+ sites that use GovHub), about 0.84% of page visits are to Page Not Found screens. That may not seem like much, but it still translates to over a thousand visits a month for some larger agencies. Wouldn’t it be nice to use that opportunity to help those people find what they’re looking for?

How do they get there?

There are a few reasons that your site visitors may wind up on your 404 Error page:

  1. Another website or search engine has an outdated link to your website.
  2. One of your own web pages has an outdated link to another page within your website.
  3. The visitor manually typed an incorrect web address (or has an outdated bookmark to your site).

Every Georgia.gov website is configured with a generic Page Not Found message, but it’s very bare. By its very nature, a default message across all of Georgia.gov can’t be specific to your agency. But you can create your own 404 Error page to replace our generic one.

What should my 404 page say?

  • Be friendly and helpful.
    For one thing, there’s no need for the page to have the phrase “404 Error” on it at all. That’s not helpful OR friendly. You can stick with a standard phrase like “Page Not Found,” or come up with something that better fits the tone of your website. Find the verbiage that works for you, but gets the point across that this isn’t the page they’re looking for.
  • Keep it short and sweet.
    Your page doesn’t need to say much, but rather should help them on their way.
  • Point them in the right direction.
    Refer users to the Search box in the upper right, and if you’re feeling really helpful, provide a list of the 5 or 10 most commonly accessed web pages. Your Google Analytics can come in handy there to figure out some common missteps and how you can correct them.

Ok, great, but can you give me some ideas?

Below are some example 404 Error pages to get you started.

  • At Georgia.gov, we’ve taken a simple and friendly approach to the Page Not Found screen.
  • On GovHub, DPH has taken the lead with creating a custom error page with suggested content.

Awesome. I know what I want my Page Not Found message to say. Now what?

If you’re on GovHub, create a Site Page with the title and content you want for your custom 404 Error page. Publish it, but don’t assign it to the menu anywhere. Then open a support ticket and let us know which page you would like to be your new 404 Error page, and we’ll make the switch for you. It’s that easy!

If you manage your own website, you’re going to have to do your own legwork to tell web browsers where to find your 404 page. As long as you have access to your server, the process is pretty straightforward. You will need to check with your server administrator for details on how to configure your 404 page based on your server’s setup.

Either way, let’s go lend a helping hand!

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