404 error – try this link instead???

  • Aaron

    (@ergate)


    21 years ago

    Hi,
    Recently I have changed out another site over to WordPress (love this script), the site that I changed over was a dynamic, and static website, with some custom scripts that read flat files, all relevant flat files were copied into the wordpress db.
    Now that the new WordPress powered site has been running for three days, we have noticed quite a few hits for some of the old flat files, pages and images. This was previously considred and decided that the change in site and structure would be worth a temporary jump in errors. But we did not realize how many of the errors would be coming in from google, msn etc search requests.
    What we would like to do is, when the 404 error page is returned to have a few suggested links, something based on the file requested, or the search string that is brought the visitor in from the search engine. Is this possible, or is this already accomplished? Is this something that may return a couple of results from a search query? Any suggestions?

    Thanks.
    Aaron
    *edit* I think I put this in the wrong topic.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • moshu

    (@moshu)

    21 years ago

    Try Google for custom 404 file…

    Thread Starter Aaron

    (@ergate)

    21 years ago

    ok, I am thick.

    Are you suggesting google to generate the suggested link, or searching google for making a custom 404.

    I have found lots of links on how to make custom 404 files, (nothing about what I am trying to do…yet), and I have not yet found anything about including a couple of suggested links in a 404 page.

    vkaryl

    (@vkaryl)

    21 years ago

    If you have Cpanel or something similar on your host, you can edit the error pages in the file manager and include whatever links you like. Hand-coding I mean – and that would mean a separate error page for every link which used to lie elsewhere.

    Now if you want something like a “mini-response search engine” to do it for you from database lookup depending on link clicked, that might need a programmer, sounds complicated.

    I might opt for a slew of redirects from the old pages to the new ones if you still have the ability to do that depending on server changes or whatever. I do know there’s some page-rank stuff with google when you use various sorts of redirects, but don’t know the specifics….

    iand

    (@iand)

    21 years ago

    Could you make a 404.php page, and include the wp search box. It would require people to search again, but might be easier than lots of redirects etc.

    Kafkaesqui

    (@kafkaesqui)

    21 years ago

    moshu’s suggestion was to search for info on creating a custom 404.

    WordPress supports a 404 page with the new themes feature. You can create a 404.php template (in your active theme), then if your host supports use of .htaccess, you can add a line like the following to it:

    ErrorDocument 404 /index.php?error=404

    Thread Starter Aaron

    (@ergate)

    21 years ago

    The host does support .htaccess, and a custom theme based 404 is being used. It all looks real slick, menus, navigation everything is there.

    We were just hopeing that maybe a hack or plugin existed that would allow a couple of links that might be usefull.
    But it sounds like there would be quite a bit of coding involved. I can implement stuff and make changes, but I am no good at coding. So we will probably leave it as is, hope people read the categories and navigation so they can find what they are looking for.

    thanks

    getarun_vr

    (@getarun_vr)

    20 years, 2 months ago

    Also check out http://www.arunrocks.com/blog/archives/2006/03/01/a-nearly-perfect-404-error-page-in-wordpress/

    for a tutorial on creating custom 404 pages with relevant suggestions from the site

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

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