Running Time: 01m 58s

 

This video demonstrates how to create a custom 404 or "Page Not Found" page.

 

NB Click on  in the bottom right of the video to view fullscreen.

 

 

About this video

This video assumes you are already logged into the Sketchanet editor. If you don't know how to do this, you can find out how here. 

 

What is a 404 page?

One of the most common errors you can come across while browsing the Internet is a 404 or Page Not Found error. This error often occurs when you follow a broken link or if you type in a website address that doesn’t exist.

 

If you remove a page, or change the url (slug) of a page, then someone trying to access the old url will see a 404 page. Sketchanet automatically generates a 404 page for you using your base heading font and your base body font. However, it might not necessarily work with the rest of your site design. You can override this default behaviour by creating your own 404 page design that fully compliments the rest of your site design.

 

Some brands customize their 404 page to showcase their sense of humor or creativity. Here are some examples of creative 404 pages.

 

How to create one

Clone or create a new page and call it 404-page. It is vital that the page url is '404-page' as this is the magic url that sets it as the 404 page design. Drag the page into the non-menu section of the pages manager so that it doesn't appear in the main page navigation.  Apart from that, the page can be styled as creatively as you want. 

 

You can test your 404 page is working by entering a url that doesn't exist on your website into your browser. Be aware that if you have not published the site, you'll need to use the preview url, and enter the non-existant url AFTER /preview/ eg /preview/deadurl

 

Redirect broken links

While having a 404 page is good practise, it is even better to redirect any links that you know have changed. This helps keep you SEO in good shape. At any time Google will have your various pages cached in it's index. If you change one or more page urls, help Google by creating redirects from the old url to the new url. This also means that someone clicking a link from Google will end up at the page you want them too rather than on your 404 page. Please see our redirects tutorial here.