Keep SE traffic - 404 Error Page Tip

Admin · Aug 30, 2006

I just zapped PHP_Nuke from one of my sites as it stopped working, and replaced it with Joomla - its awesome!

Anyway, I checked Google for pages linking to my site and obviously, some of them now give 404 errors, the dreaded "page not found"

I just added:

Code:

ErrorDocument 400 http://www.mydomain.co.uk
ErrorDocument 401 http://www.mydomain.co.uk
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.mydomain.co.uk
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.mydomain.co.uk
ErrorDocument 500 http://www.mydomain.co.uk

to my .htacess file.

Now ALL my links in Google will send the visitor straight to the new Joomla homepage. Without this, I am losing valuable traffic as people click away to the next site.

So, if ever you change content of a domain, recycle your own SE links!

wwwdomain.name · Aug 30, 2006

Great post admin...

Some will find that VERY hany indeed...

housemusicdj · Aug 31, 2006

Good tip that, cheers

LoneDomainer · Aug 31, 2006

dont forget 301 as well ( page moved )

abdussamad · Sep 3, 2006

I guess that makes sense from a seo point of view but what happens when a user tries to access a non-existent page and ends up viewing the front page. He'll be a bit confused. So perhaps it would be better if you make a "file not found" error page that has links to the rest of your site. This way your optimising your site for both search engines and humans.

Admin · Sep 3, 2006

abdussamad said:
I guess that makes sense from a seo point of view but what happens when a user tries to access a non-existent page and ends up viewing the front page. He'll be a bit confused. So perhaps it would be better if you make a "file not found" error page that has links to the rest of your site. This way your optimising your site for both search engines and humans.

Doesn't your homepage have links to the rest of your site then? :???: