Dealing with 404's and other "page not found" type errors

[draggar]

I know I asked befure but the search function now isn't the best.

I'm re-doing some of my sites and I'd like to have 404's either goto a 404 page (in Joomla - like all the other pages but just have a "404" error with an explaination on the page) or redirect to the home page.

There are no 404 pages now in the directory.

 

[Theo]

For joomla matters, PM meganerd

 

[Honan]

http://www.dnforum.com/f123/how-fix-eliminate-404-errors-thread-382378.html

 

[draggar]

I knew I asked before! TY ISG.

So the question is - how can I set up a 404 page in Joomla? Make a copy of the index page and rename it 404?

 

[Honan]

http://docs.joomla.org/Tutorial:Create_a_Custom_404_Error_Page

 

[Tia Wood]

Dragger, you can also edit your templates > system > error.php page.

However, this won't catch all of them so it's good to create a 404 in your main directory as well.

 

[draggar]

TY for the links - I've edited the file and I'm getting a generic 404 error now, not the "article" that I made. I'll look into editing a 404 error file to show the article or at least look like the site.

Edit: Now there is a generic 404 error page. How can I edit it to either redirect to the 404 "article" I made (as long as "G" is OK with it? (Other than editing the .htaccess file since G doesn't seem to like that one).

 

[cjmacd]

dragger:

in my experience joomla never quite handled 404 errors properly. As you know there is a lot of custom work and detailing just to get it to serve a 404 as an article you control.

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=199&t=251089 is a useful thread on the topic

If you are looking to go a step further, I suggest taking a look at sh404SEF extension http://dev.anything-digital.com/sh404SEF/

back when J!1.0 was the standard Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLS did not work so well in Jommlas core. the sh404sef component was the defacto extension to handle SEF.

even then it had a very robust 404 and redirection engine. At the time it was free and GPL

Now it has turned into a very good Commercial extension, a perfect for URL manager that overtime will be able to solve your 404s with actual 301 redirects managed from your admin panel. every-time a 404 is encountered it will try to redirect it somewhere( you can edit these manually of course). it will also remove duplicate URLS, which is something that can plague joomla sites if your menus are not set up correctly.

it is well worth the price can be picked it up for as little as $35

http://dev.anything-digital.com/sh404sef-subscriptions.html

 

[draggar]

My host must have done something. I've been trying to get a 404 to work on a new site (Joomla) and it never did. I couldn't get it working no matter what I did.

Then I decided to check another site that did work and it wasn't working.

Both now have 404's that redirect to a 404 page from the host (obviously with a link to their service).

I've tried to delete the 404.html page and that didn't help.

.htaccess doesn't seem to help.

Thoughts?