We’ve all be there. You click on a link and bam, you end up on a page with the dreaded 404 error – Page Not Found!
Why does this happen? Well, let’s look at when you have changed or redesigned your site or blog in WordPress. Realize, these new pages have new url’s. For example:
Your old site had a page for links:
http://yoursite.com/links
Now on your WordPress site you called your link page, “great links”. So now your url has changed to:
http://yoursite.com/great-links
So how do people find your old link? Well, it may still show up in a search. Or it might have been linked to from another site. Whatever the case, if someone clicks on the old link they end up on a Error 404 Page Not Found.
What to do about this? Well, most WordPress themes have their own 404 page. The beauty of it is you can go in and edit that page to make it more user-friendly if someone lands on it. Of course, you may need to understand a bit of coding, but to access it, go to “Apperance” > “Editor” and click on 404 template. If you are able to do this, a few pointers:
- Replace the “404 Page Not Found” with something a little more friendly, like “Sorry this page has moved” or something like that.
- Include a link that will take them to your home page or point out that they can use the navigation bar to get where they want to go.
- Use humor if you want to.
- If you want to know how they landed on that page, you can go as far as to put a contact form on it asking for more information.
- Add an image to lighten up the experience.
Here is what viewers find on my bobwp site when they land on our 404 page.
If you have a 404 page you would like to share with us, show us the way!
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