by Tadas Talaikis
Posted on April 18, 2004
When visiting websites, you can find a lot of uncanny 401, 404, 403 error pages. What do they mean?
400 - Bad file request. It means file exist on server, but wrong syntax used to get that file.
403 - Access denied. It means you need a username and password to enter this area or owner of site has some blocking of your IP or method you use.
Tip #1. For example, someone wants to use 'Web Downloader' to browse my site offline or just seeks illegally extract data from my site, I enter in .htaccess file (it sits on your website public html directory) few lines:
... and this 'visitor' gets 403 error, and is being redirected to my custom blocked.html page.
404 - File not found. File does not exist on server. Maybe owner changed address or deleted that file.
Tip #2. If you came from Google, you can see that file by clicking 'page cache'. If file is older than one month, you can try to locate it on Web Archive http://www.archive.org.
500 - Internal server error. It means there is a problem with server side script or server has configuration errors.
Tip #3. How to keep your visitors on your site when they get error files? Create your custom error files! And then add few lines into your .htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.your-domain.com/404.html
When page not found I like to use redirecting to main page instead of custom 'not found' page. Here's example:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.zongoo.com ErrorDocument 403 http://www.zongoo.com/blocked.html
400 - Bad file request. It means file exist on server, but wrong syntax used to get that file.
403 - Access denied. It means you need a username and password to enter this area or owner of site has some blocking of your IP or method you use.
Tip #1. For example, someone wants to use 'Web Downloader' to browse my site offline or just seeks illegally extract data from my site, I enter in .htaccess file (it sits on your website public html directory) few lines:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^Web Downloader [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ blocked.html [L]... and this 'visitor' gets 403 error, and is being redirected to my custom blocked.html page.
404 - File not found. File does not exist on server. Maybe owner changed address or deleted that file.
Tip #2. If you came from Google, you can see that file by clicking 'page cache'. If file is older than one month, you can try to locate it on Web Archive http://www.archive.org.
500 - Internal server error. It means there is a problem with server side script or server has configuration errors.
Tip #3. How to keep your visitors on your site when they get error files? Create your custom error files! And then add few lines into your .htaccess file:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.your-domain.com/404.html
When page not found I like to use redirecting to main page instead of custom 'not found' page. Here's example:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.zongoo.com ErrorDocument 403 http://www.zongoo.com/blocked.html
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE...
No comments yet. Be the first one to comment.
Turn Harmful 404 Error Pages Into Helpful 301 Redirects
Easy Domain Migration To a New Unix Server
Manual Redirection: The Best Safe Bet For Redirection In HTML
Easy Domain Migration To a New Unix Server
Manual Redirection: The Best Safe Bet For Redirection In HTML
SEO Articles
Internet Marketing Articles
Development Articles
General Articles
And also in our Archives
Internet Marketing Articles
Development Articles
General Articles
And also in our Archives
Drive traffic to your business and get recognized as an industry leader by sharing your knowledge on Site-Reference. Authors are given a wide range of exclusive benefits here at SR; so checkout what we can offer to those that…

We’re always on the lookout for new writing talent so even if haven’t written for the web yet, feel free to contact us anytime
We’re always on the lookout for new writing talent so even if haven’t written for the web yet, feel free to contact us anytime





