Custom error page - do's and don'ts

We all know why the error pages occur.Apparently this may look a simple matter, especially if you are newbie in handling the matters of your website. Plainly speaking, error pages does matter. Particularly the most common error page is the 404 which comes in case there is any broken link, unidentified deleted page or page with a misspelled URL. Whatever the case may be, there has to be proper reply to the user query. Here is the use of a customized 404 page.

Now there may be a question how should be the look of the custom error page? You may also ask what should be there in a customized 404 page when you hire website designer to know the level of efficiency he or she has. Anyways, let us have a look on the matter.

• Never let your visitors feel irritated with junk scripts rather state them in clean and clear language that the requested page is not found. Custom error page should clearly say what the reason of the error is. The user should understand that the result against their query is not found through a simple customized 404 page.
• The custom error page has to be designed just like the other pages. It is sometimes found that the 404 pages are very dull in look and does not fit to the overall design with the site. Remember you are to show the customized 404 page in a way that user feel it no way boring or something irrelevant.

• Have you customized 404 page with only a blank message"page not found"? Make its presence relevant, put there your site map which will help the user navigate to other pages. If you can custom error page in this way, definitely the user going to stick with your site; otherwise they will never return to your site anymore. At least there should be a link to go to the sites home page.
• When you customized 404 page, have you ensured that the pages are not indexed by the search engines? Sometimes it is found that the custom error page is left to be indexed by the search engines. This creates really bad impression to the eyes of the visitors. Simply block the page with meta tag from the web crawlers to crawl.
• Custom error page with widgets that help to show a search box with which users can search anything within the site just staying on the page. It will certainly help the users to stay on your site.

However these are few dos and don’t about the custom error page. There may be many other things to show a customized 404 page to the users. Even today it is found that the pages are with an option to report the broken link. Visitors are politely requested to report through this type of custom error page. However the error page design is no issue to me. I have been working as a freelance graphic designer for last decade and no client of mine has any question about the customized 404 page design for their websites. You should equally take care of customized 404 page design issue and keep your visitors coming back to your site.