[Pro] 404 redirect page

Freeway
1

I recently noticed that google results were coming up with early pages and links from the beginnings of a web site. As I learned more the pages changed and also some of the content.

As the client is engaged in speaking appearances, she is anxious to have the pages current in the search engine which I believe I have done (site maps action, bots allowed, manual updates at webmaster tools). I proposed a custom 404 page that would feature a generic explanation on the site master page w/pages menu (looks like all other pages -foundation) and a site search. This way the info is current, and the viewer does not leave the site;

http://www.giftofanger.com/404notfound

The client proposed an auto - redirect to the home page. I thought this might lead to confusion.

Question: Any thoughts pro or con to these methods? It is imperative that I get this ‘right’ quickly.

As always, thanks for your time and support in advance.

Frank H.

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2

I would vote to send it to the home page as your client is advertising herself and she probably does not care about old Google info but wants as many hits as possible to her main website.

just my 2 cents worth,

Dale Josephson
Dale Josephson Consulting
Apple Developer & Support

On Oct 26, 2011, at Wednesday12:41 PM, Frank H wrote:

I recently noticed that google results were coming up with early pages and links from the beginnings of a web site. As I learned more the pages changed and also some of the content.

As the client is engaged in speaking appearances, she is anxious to have the pages current in the search engine which I believe I have done (site maps action, bots allowed, manual updates at webmaster tools). I proposed a custom 404 page that would feature a generic explanation on the site master page w/pages menu (looks like all other pages -foundation) and a site search. This way the info is current, and the viewer does not leave the site;

Coming Soon

The client proposed an auto - redirect to the home page. I thought this might lead to confusion.

Question: Any thoughts pro or con to these methods? It is imperative that I get this ‘right’ quickly.

As always, thanks for your time and support in advance.

Frank H.

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3

Thank you Dale.

My reason against was the “huh!?” factor. As in, “where is what I was looking for?”.

So far, it looks like that is just me…

: )

Frank

On Oct 26, 2011, at 12:49 PM, Dale Josephson wrote:

I would vote to send it to the home page as your client is advertising herself and she probably does not care about old Google info but wants as many hits as possible to her main website.

just my 2 cents worth,

Dale Josephson
Dale Josephson Consulting
Apple Developer & Support

On Oct 26, 2011, at Wednesday12:41 PM, Frank H wrote:

I recently noticed that google results were coming up with early pages and links from the beginnings of a web site. As I learned more the pages changed and also some of the content.

As the client is engaged in speaking appearances, she is anxious to have the pages current in the search engine which I believe I have done (site maps action, bots allowed, manual updates at webmaster tools). I proposed a custom 404 page that would feature a generic explanation on the site master page w/pages menu (looks like all other pages -foundation) and a site search. This way the info is current, and the viewer does not leave the site;

Coming Soon

The client proposed an auto - redirect to the home page. I thought this might lead to confusion.

Question: Any thoughts pro or con to these methods? It is imperative that I get this ‘right’ quickly.

As always, thanks for your time and support in advance.

Frank H.

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4

I would go with a custom 404 with links to home page ( and possibly other significant ones)

Certainly on my server setup this is easy to achieve in FW - just the matter of creating a page with the filename of 404.shtml

http://www.deltadesign.co/anythingatall.html

David

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5

You might also need to use the Remote Resources Action to prefix all pathnames with a /, or use a base href tag in the head of the page to properly root all relative links, otherwise your images might not work correctly.

The issue is that when a 404 fires, the URL in the browser is not changed, so the browser doesn’t know where to start to create the proper absolute URL from the partial “relative” URLs that Freeway uses for all graphic assets, or any in-site links. Your 404 page might be designed to work great at the root level of your site, but when it fires deep into the site hierarchy, say at /products/widgets/boot-trees.html (sadly, you’ve gone out of that business, and Google’s the last to find out…), any links to images on your 404 page will be trying to load from Resources/some.gif, when the real link to that file is at …/…/Resources/some.gif

Walter

On Oct 26, 2011, at 6:11 PM, DeltaDave wrote:

I would go with a custom 404 with links to home page ( and possibly other significant ones)

Certainly on my server setup this is easy to achieve in FW - just the matter of creating a page with the filename of 404.shtml

http://www.deltadesign.co/anythingatall.html

David

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6

Thanks Walter,

It sounds like the href would be the most sweeping solution, would that be on each page that needs the resource file?

I know I have seen it mentioned before in these posts, but I would have to lookup what an href is and how to apply it.

Final question (here anyway). The site is hosted with (get ready…) Go Daddy, linux servers with an option that once one uploads a custom page for 404 with site folder/pages (root?), entering the URL of the page should bring it up for 404 errors. Would either of the above be necessary?

Thanks for your time with this - always a feast for thought!

Frank H

On Oct 26, 2011, at 6:46 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

You might also need to use the Remote Resources Action to prefix all pathnames with a /, or use a base href tag in the head of the page to properly root all relative links, otherwise your images might not work correctly.

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7

Thanks much Dave, for the example also!

Frank H.

On Oct 26, 2011, at 3:11 PM, DeltaDave wrote:

I would go with a custom 404 with links to home page ( and possibly other significant ones)
…
http://www.deltadesign.co/anythingatall.html

David

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8

The Action would make it pretty simple too. But the base href is done like this:

<base href="http://example.com/" /> (XHTML)
<base href="http://example.com"> (HTML)

Use whichever of these matches your page output level. Naturally, substitute your own full-qualified domain for the canonical example address, and don’t include the (XHTML) label text, either. To add this in Freeway, go to the Page / HTML Markup dialog, choose After from the picker in the lower-left, and paste in the appropriate tag.

You only need to do this on pages like the 404 that may be displayed somewhere other than the site root.

Best of luck with GoDaddy, and please do yourself a favor whenever your account comes up for renewal: run, run screaming to another host.

Walter

On Oct 27, 2011, at 1:13 PM, Frank H wrote:

Thanks Walter,

It sounds like the href would be the most sweeping solution, would that be on each page that needs the resource file?

I know I have seen it mentioned before in these posts, but I would have to lookup what an href is and how to apply it.

Final question (here anyway). The site is hosted with (get ready…) Go Daddy, linux servers with an option that once one uploads a custom page for 404 with site folder/pages (root?), entering the URL of the page should bring it up for 404 errors. Would either of the above be necessary?

Thanks for your time with this - always a feast for thought!

Frank H

On Oct 26, 2011, at 6:46 PM, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

You might also need to use the Remote Resources Action to prefix all pathnames with a /, or use a base href tag in the head of the page to properly root all relative links, otherwise your images might not work correctly.

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