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One of the highest recommendations I have is to make sure when a user hits a dead page on your blog they have the ability to easily navigate around to a proper page, give them everything at their fingertips so that they can find another page rather than leave your blog and go off to read something else.
Google provides some useful code that you can plug into your 404.php page and add a search box directly on your 404 page, it also will sometimes offer best matches, but this functionality is iffy and sometimes works, when it does its nice, when it doesn’t it is still useful to have a search form right on your 404 page.
Here is basically what you have to do to enhance your 404.php page
1st you must have a Google WebMaster account (and it is recommended you get the <script> lines in red below from cut/pasting them from your webmaster tools section.
Once you have that code
Go into your Wordpress Admin
Click on “Editor”
Edit your blogs 404.php
Inside the DIV post section change the following:Â (The red sections are the parts you add and customize)
(Note:Â You must have a Google webmaster account and your blog registered with Google WebMaster tools to utilize the enhanced google 404 page code)
<div class=”post”>
<div class=”post-title”>
<div class=”post-date”></div>
<h2>404 – POST NOT FOUND</H2>
</div>
<div class=”post-entry”>
<p>Sorry the requested page cannot be found, please try going to the home page <a href=”http://www.YOURSITE.com”>YOUR SITE</a> or you can search for what you are looking for below.
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var GOOG_FIXURL_LANG = ‘en’;
var GOOG_FIXURL_SITE = ‘http://www.YOURSITE.com/’;
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”
src=”http://linkhelp.clients.google.com/tbproxy/lh/wm/fixurl.js”></script>
<p> -Your Blog Account</p>
</div>
So this is what my custom 404 page looks like now after enhancing it:
-Dragon Blogger
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Tags: 404.php, add search to 404 page, blog 404page, blog error pages, custom blog error page, Enhance 404 page, enhance blog 404 page, enhance blog error pages, Google 404 Enhance, google error enhance, wordpress error page
