I have not done the redir on any BANS only sites…

Mark

Yes, it is actually part of what is used on this same method.

Mark

She refers to it as being a “pretty bad hack job” but if it works wouldn’t it be better than returning false 200s?

Yup – its a pain!! BANS was coded to override any 404′s by delivering the main page nto the browser, regardless of the url that does not exist. Its a great way to make sure the visitor see’s something, but not good for search spiders.

@ Cherie -

Thank you for the detailed response to this!! I am going to try it out this morning on a site and see how it goes…

Mark

To create a custom 404 page that replaces our default 404 pages please follow the following directions:

If you just want a simple 404 page for all sites in the account. This method will work only if your domain name is propagated and you are using it to access the site, accessing via IP will not work:

1. Create a page called 404.shtml. You can write any text there you want or use HTML code or your favorite editing tool like Dreamweaver to design the 404 page.

2. Upload 404.shtml to the public_html directory of your site.

3. Now when you go to any of the domains including the primary domain of your site and go to a page that does not exist you will see your 404 message instead of ours.

If you want to use different 404 pages for different domains in the same account or want to be able to see your own 404′s when using the IP of the server use the following advanced instructions:

1. Design a custom page that you would like your viewers to see. Upload this page to your /public_html directory. You should call it something like “my404page.html”.

2. Edit the .htaccess file in /public_html to contain the following line, edit the line with the correct domain/path as needed:

ErrorDocument 404 http://somedomain.com/my404page.html

You would think something as simple as a custom 404 page for a stock BANS site would be easy, but it isn’t. I have tried to make custom in DW and upload – won’t work. I tried to use my host to make a custom 404 – nothing. The only way I can get this to 404 is with the standard method (ErrorDocument 404 /404).

Oh well, at least I now have 404′s.

Thanks Mark.