Search Engine Optimization - http://www.seoteaching.com/pub
Potential use of 404-Error pages
http://www.seoteaching.com/pub/articles/4/1/Potential-use-of-404-Error-pages/Page1.html
Sandhya Rani
 
By Sandhya Rani
Published on 02/4/2009
 
Reason for 404 Error Pages * A mistyped URL, or a copy-and-paste mistake * Broken or truncated links on web pages or in an email message * Moved or deleted content Confronted by a 404 page, users may then attempt to manually correct the URL, click the back button, or even navigate away from your site.

Potential use of 404-Error pages

Reason for 404 Error Pages


  • A mistyped URL, or a copy-and-paste mistake

  • Broken or truncated links on web pages or in an email message

  • Moved or deleted content


Confronted by a 404 page, users may then attempt to manually correct the URL, click the back button, or even navigate away from your site.


To over come this create a customized 404 widget, which will direct the visitor from wrong Url to the closest match Url.

In addition to attempting to correct the URL, the 404 widget also suggests the following, if available:

a link to the parent subdirectory

  • a sitemap webpage

  • site search query suggestions and search box


(For more information http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/08/make-your-404-pages-more-useful.html

)

Implementation Process:

Use the Below mentioned code (Customized One)


Changing the appearance of the custom 404 widget ( Code to be incorporated on 404-pages)


<style type="text/css">

/* Widget content container */

#goog-wm { }


/* Heading for "Closest match"

#goog-wm h3.closest-match { }


/* "Closest match" link

#goog-wm h3.closest-match a { }


/* Heading for "Other things" */

#goog-wm h3.other-things { }


/* "Other things" list item */

#goog-wm ul li { }


(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=100044&hl=en )



Do write to me if you have any questions on this.I will update few more  new techniques on this in my next article.

Regards
Rani SRi