A 404 error page is something no website visitor wants to see—but that doesn’t mean it has to be a dead end. Instead of a generic “Page Not Found” message, a well-designed and creative 404 page can keep visitors engaged, entertain them, and should guide them back to relevant content. The best 404 pages turn an unfortunate moment into an opportunity to reinforce brand personality and user experience.
Here are some examples of creative 404 pages we love:
American fast food chain Wendys turns an error into a game. Help Wendy make her orders in time by directing her around your screen towards the ingredients whilst avoiding the pink blobs trying to get you.
If you’re into classic computer games, you’ll love hosting and domain provider Kualo’s 404 page, which allows users to take out their error frustrations on space invaders.
Whilst very similar to Vev’s drawing canvas, Left Logic also include a gallery of previous favourite 404 visitor artworks inspiring a hint of competition in users.
OK, so we’re a little bias with this one, as we created this page. A little animated version of their Woody character rolls in and out of the page. A site search and some key page links means people can navigate to something more useful.
Self proclaimed as “The most awkward 404 page on the internet” Steve Lamberts way of dealing with an awkward error is to just make things even more uncomfortable with his on page video. Maybe not a choice most people would want on their website – but it’s certainly different.
Avoiding 404s on Your Own Site
There are a few really easy tips to avoid visitors seeing too many 404s on your own site:
Ideally, don’t change an address once a page is live, otherwise existing links to that page will no longer work. If you really must, then make sure there is a redirect from the old address to the new one.
Scan your site for broken links. Over time pages are likely to be removed or changed. Scan your site with a tool such as Screaming Frog or Xenu to find internal links that are broken.
Monitor your error pages. In Google Analytics you can monitor the addresses that are triggering your page not found error: Firstly, deliberately go to an incorrect URL on your site and make a note of the page title (in this case “Page not found – Infotex”.
In Google Analytics, go to Reports: Engagement: Pages and Screens. Make sure the column drop down is set to Page Title, then search for your error page title.
Click the plus symbol next to the column drop down, and search for “Page Path” and select it. This will show you the addresses of the pages that are returning an error.
