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We’ve all seen them,
you’ve been browsing a website and you click a link and
nothing loads apart from the words ‘404 Error’ along
with the usual stuff.
So what is a 404 Error
page? The 404 Error page, basically informs the user that
the server cannot find the file they are looking for.
However, instead of using the default 404 Error page you
can create your own, this is how you do it.
First, you need your
.htaccess file which should be within your web site
directory. If you cannot find it you will need to create
one. You will have to contact your host asking them how
you would go about creating or editing this file. They may
want you to use a text editor and then upload it, or they
may want you to use a PICO editor and create or edit the
file on the server.
How you have access to the
.htaccess file lets edit it. Add this line to the
.htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourdomain.com/404page.html
Make sure this line is kept
on online. This is where your 404 Error page is kept.
Now you’ve change the
.htaccess file you need to create the page. This is simply
a normal HTML document. Once you’ve created the HTML
document, save it and call it 404page.html. Now the next
step is to upload the .htaccess file and the page to the
server.
Now that is done your next
step is to turn it on. This is done by setting the CHMOD
attribute to 644. You can do this via telnet or some FTP
programs. If your going to telnet into your server, use
the following command:
chmod 644 .htaccess
Now test to see if it’s
worked. Just go to a page that doesn’t exist on your
server and you should see your new 404 Error page. If not,
then make sure the CHMOD is set correctly, and if that
doesn’t help, you may want to ask your hosting company
for support.
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