Adding custom "404 Not Found" pages to a website

Hello to everyone on Compila Exchange,

First of all can I begin by wishing everyone who's part of this community a very Happy New Year - I hope 2011 is a happy and successful one for all of you. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to post more actively over here, so hopefully there should be many posts from me to annoy you all!

I very much hope that this is the correct group to post this query, it seemed like the closest match for the question I have!

I would very much like to add customised 404 Not Found pages to all the websites I'm involved with, most of which are hosted with Compila. I've seen a cPanel tutorial on the main Compila website that shows me how to customise the text that displays - however, I would like to take this to the next step and set up these pages to incorporate the following:

- The website logo

- A customised message (such as "Sorry, we couldn't find the page you were looking for!")

- A site map displaying on the page (so users can look down it for the page they were looking for)

- All of the above displayed using the site's colour scheme, fonts, etc.

Is there a way that this can be done via FTP, i.e. is there a way I can replace the current 404 Not Found page (and indeed other error display pages as well) with a new version, if so where are these located (I realise you can probably only provide a definitive answer as to where they're located on Compila sites), and is there anything special I have to do to set this up (such as make any adjustments to the .htaccess file, etc.)?

I feel that this would be a nice professional touch to add to all my websites and that, with a little guidance, I have the design skill and technical savvy to introduce this - however, nevertheless I'd appreciate the guidance of the experts here at Compila to ensure that I don't break anything!! If you would be able to advise me on this, I'd very much appreciate it - many thanks!

Once again, a Happy New Year to all of you, and hope to hear from you soon!

Best wishes,

Chris

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Harvey Raybould on January 3, 2011 at 8:48

Hi Chris,

Happy New Year to you and I truly hope that 2011 is a great one for you and your family.

With regards to custom error pages there are 2 ways that you can achieve what you want, firstly you can use a .htaccess file to tell the web server where your error files are located or secondly you can just create error pages name them 400.shtml, 401.shtml, 404.shtml etc and then upload these to your public_html folder.

To create a .htaccess file in notepad add the following and then upload to the server via FTP.

<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

ErrorDocument 404 /errordocs/error404.htm
ErrorDocument 500 /errordocs/error500.htm

=====================================================

You would then create your error pages with the name you wish and upload them via FTP to the relevant folder.

Secondly, you can simply create new html pages, in the design you wish name them the following
and upload them to the server.

400.shtml
401.shtml
404.shtml
500.shtml

I hope this helps and if you need anymore information please let me know.

Best Wishes

Harvey

Permalink Reply by Chris Davis on January 3, 2011 at 19:12

Hi Harvey,

Just to say thanks so much for getting back to me about this - these are the reasons why I love Compila Exchange! :)

I really appreciate your very helpful response - I shall have a crack at doing this as you suggest, and will get back to you if I encounter any problems. Once again, many thanks for your kind help, it's very much appreciated!

Best wishes,

Chris

Harvey Raybould said:

Hi Chris,

Happy New Year to you and I truly hope that 2011 is a great one for you and your family.

With regards to custom error pages there are 2 ways that you can achieve what you want, firstly you can use a .htaccess file to tell the web server where your error files are located or secondly you can just create error pages name them 400.shtml, 401.shtml, 404.shtml etc and then upload these to your public_html folder.

To create a .htaccess file in notepad add the following and then upload to the server via FTP.

<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

ErrorDocument 404 /errordocs/error404.htm
ErrorDocument 500 /errordocs/error500.htm

=====================================================

You would then create your error pages with the name you wish and upload them via FTP to the relevant folder.

Secondly, you can simply create new html pages, in the design you wish name them the following
and upload them to the server.

400.shtml
401.shtml
404.shtml
500.shtml

I hope this helps and if you need anymore information please let me know.

Best Wishes

Harvey