192 – Exploring the WordPress 404 Page
Announcements
- Jetpack updates to 3.1 and adds a new logo and portfolio custom post types
- WordCamp Columbus Recap
- For a look into Dustin’s life, check out DustinHartzler.com
Is there a plugin for that?
With more than 50,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, it’s hard to find the perfect one. Each week, I will highlight an interesting plugin form the repository.
For more great plugins, download my 50 Most Useful Plugins eBook.
Today I’d like to highlight Broken Link Checker
Exploring the WordPress 404 Page
The HTTP 404 Not Found Error means that the webpage you were trying to reach could not be found on the server. It is a client-side Error which means that either the page has been removed or moved and the URL was not changed accordingly, or that you typed in the URL incorrectly.
Why would there be any 404 errors when all the links on the site are good? Are these hacking attempts, Search engines gone wild?
There’s always a possibility that you’ve removed a link that might have caused the 404 links.
How to check the site’s links automatically?
Broken Link Checker plugin will help you to find any links that no longer point to a valid page.
Do too many 404 errors hurt the SEO results?
Yes! Google doesn’t want to serve up web results if the site has a significant amounts of bad links
Should every web site have a custom 404 page? If so, how, why?
Custom 404 pages are great to keeping your audience engaged, even if they stumble upon a page that doesn’t exist on your site any more.
It’s great to have a call to action or a search form or something on this page to let the user know your site is useful to them even though they ended up on a broken page.
Which is best a 404 page or a plug in that redirects would be 404’s back to the home page?
404 to Start is the best plugin to redirect your 404 page to a custom page that you choose.
Great examples of 404 pages
Call To Action
This week, create a 404 page that will help your visitors instead of hindering them. Leave a comment below and show off your 404 page!
Here are a few of mine:
http://www.mobilemuseumofart.com/nopagehere/ (give a sitemap in sidebar and indicate search box)
http://www.pensacolakayak.com/nopagehere/
http://www.clienttell.net/nopagehere/ (give a sitemap in content)
http://boyoco.com/nopagehere/ (give search box)
Aug 7, 2014It would be fun to know and make it easy to integrate external api calls into wordpress there are few plugins available to call external api’s but those are too techie.
Would love to see if someone has an easier way to call external api’s for free.
Aug 7, 2014SullivanDavid Nice! I like the ‘Up a creek without a paddle one’ 🙂
Aug 7, 2014dealtikka I’d recommend checking out apigee.com
Aug 7, 2014dhartzler10 I played around with apigee but does not allow groupon patner api call, looking for some tool to call groupon patner api and create WP posts.
Aug 14, 2014dealtikka I don’t know of one. Hopefully someone else will comment with a tool that will help!
Aug 14, 2014Thanks for the tips – I enjoyed creating my “404 page not found” page with your suggestions and the plugin. I figured I might as well as have fun with it. Keep up the great work Dustin.
Aug 19, 2014