It’s scary when you are lost. Even worse if someone starts shouting at you for reaching the wrong place. Worse still if there is nothing to help you find where you originally wanted to go. Welcome to the world of good and bad 404 pages.
Get it right, you keep your visitor. Get it wrong, they head back to where they came from and you have missed out. If you are a sales website you have missed a potential sale. If you have access to change your 404 page – you should do.. but not any old 404 will do you need to think about what you are going to include in this page as much as you would your homepage.
Images below are clickable so you can see the screenshots of the good and bad 404 pages. Click the links to visit the real life pages which in some cases they may have improved. At the bottom of this page are recomendations for what to and not to do when creating your 404.
BBC.co.uk – includes the term 404 which is not helpful. Does include hints of pages the user could use to help them find the content they are looking for.
ITV’s 404 page gives you some clues where else to go but weirdly includes an advert at the top (blocked by my network). The last thing you want when you are lost is an advert!
Telegraph 404 page, a little wordy (but as usual for the telegraph does not say much of use) and really needs links to key areas of the site.
Apple does it really nicely. Simple and clean, as you would expect, with helpful links to key areas of the Apple site though a few too many links.
The guardian also keeps it nice and simple, and takes the blame rather than accusing you of doing something wrong. A few links to the most popular areas of the site works really well.
Strangely the New York Times took me to a page titled Member Center.
Sony UKwas pretty useless. Just putting the whole sitemap is not helpful and they take way too long explaining you’ve got to the wrong place – not immediately clear. Sony USsite isnt much better.
Disney gets it wrong! Getting lost should not be a crisis and do the children looking for their favourite characters need to know they have reached a 404 page. Back to the ‘drawing’ board Disney.
Its as if ABC.com just didn’t bother – well I guess they did because there is a page – but they really didn’t.
Channel 4 is far too official. For a creative TV channel this is one place I would have expected seeing something interesting with the ‘404’ label – come on channel 4.
Levis just doesnt care what you type – trust me whatever you type – it leads to the same homepage advert. When they don’t care – will you go elsewhere?
At Target it is all your fault for getting lost, however they really want to sell you a gift card.
At Deutsche Telekom I got lost in English, but had to learn German before finding my way again in their website.
IBM was another ‘404 ignore’. They just take you to their homepage because if you don’t know where you are going they clearly don’t want to know.
I searched for France Telecom, was taken to the english speaking Orange site, and when it all went wrong they tried to put me right in English. A few too many links though with helpful pointers in the right direction. My favourite behaviour of all they took the blame for me entering the wrong website address.
Barclays Bank blames it all on you, and being a bank I wouldn’t be surprised if they charge your account for going to the wrong page.
I would have loved the 404 kitten if its creator had not included the numbers 404.
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What not to do…
Put adverts in the 404 page
Blame your visitor for getting lost
Have a long explanation of why they reached the 404 page
Include your whole site map
Expect your visitor do the work, beyond whats absolutely neccesay, to get where they orignially wanted to go
Not bother at all
What to do…
Take the blame for your visitor not finding what they want – even when you did nothing wrong
Be helpful, but not too helpful
Keep it simple
Keep it in the language the user was using your site or searching in
Spend time thinking like a visitor – not only for those who know your site but those from search engines who will go elsewhere very quickly if you get it wrong
Work for your visitors and make it eays for them even when they get it wrong
I would love to…
Ban the term 404
Write a programme that always knew what you really wanted and to sell it
Christopher Wellbelove DL 
