Creating custom error pages is very useful, it allows you to show web site visitors a friendly error message, for instance if a URL on your web site does not work. This avoids the unfriendly '404 File Not Found' error and allows you to display a friendly error, explaining possible solutions and guiding the visitor back into your web site content, rather than leaving them frustrated and lost.
To set-up custom error documents, create a .htaccess file following the main instructions and guidance which includes the following text:
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ErrorDocument 404 /error_pages/404.html
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The above line tells the Apache Web Server to display the document located at /error_pages/404.html (under your domain name/web site address) whenever a 404 (file not found) error occurs.
In this example, we have assumed you have created the error document and called it '404.html' and that you have placed it in a directory called 'error_pages' under your domain name. For example, http://www.yourdomain.com/error_pages/404.html
The document 404.html is a normal HTML document like the others in your web site and can display whatever content you wish, however we recommend including a 'File Not Found' message.
To setup further error documents, for example for '401 Unauthorised', '403 Forbidden', and '500 Internal Server' error messages, create a .htaccess file following the main instructions and guidance which includes the following text:
ErrorDocument 401 /error_pages/401.html
ErrorDocument 404 /error_pages/404.html
ErrorDocument 500 /error_pages/500.html
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It's all very well displaying a friendly error message, but more importantly you need to resolve the error. By using a CGI script instead of a static HTML document as the error document allows us to record errors in a database, and resolve them.
This can be achieved very easily thanks to a variety of pre-made solutions which can even show us which errors are received most frequently. Such products can be found on The CGI Resource Index and HotScripts.com.
Updated: 31st October 2007
