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Custom Error Page Tips – Designate The Pages You Hope No One Sees

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Creating custom error pages is extremely ironic in that you put great effort into pages you hope no one sees. Custom error pages are worth the effort as they:

  • keep a person at your site -- without the custom error page, the user sees an ugly error page.
  • can be used to record the errant URL and its referrer so that you may easily fix a bad link within your own site.
  • show professionalism in that you tend to every possible output of your website.
  • prevent most users from recognizing a problem with your site and thus your website maintains credibility.

There are 5 main error pages you should create:

  • 400 - Bad Request
  • 401 - Authorization Required
  • 403 - Forbidden
  • 404 - File Not Found
  • 500 - Internal Server Error

Once you have your pages ready, you'll need to add one line of code per error page to your .htaccess file.

The Code

ErrorDocument 400 /bad-request.php
ErrorDocument 401 /authorization-required.php
ErrorDocument 403 /forbidden.php
ErrorDocument 404 /page-not-found.php
ErrorDocument 500 /internal-server-error.php

The ErrorDocument directive allows you to tell the server which page will be called when the respective error number occurs.

Tips For Handling Error Pages

  • Know your audience before judging whether to let the user know the page they were looking for wasn't found. A Web Developer will want to know that a page wasn't found, whereas an average web user may lose respect for your site...or visa versa.
  • Keep them light & funny but maintain professionalism.
  • Keep them within the same theme of your website or at least have your navigation menu on the error page -- it allows users to navigate to other parts of your website. You don't want users to just hit the back button, right?
  • Use each page to record the errant URL and referrer so that you can identify bad links.
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