Creating Custom Error Pages on Apache Servers

"A Better Error Page Solution

"If you look at the following images of some of the custom error pages used on WebReference, you will see that they provide better information and more options for our visitors:

* Custom 404 error page
* Custom 500 error page

"Isn't that much better than the default pages shown at the beginning of this tutorial? If you look closely, you'll see that the URL the visitor attempted to access is shown, along with a few reasons why they were not able to view it. They also are given an option to contact someone at the Web site. In addition, all of the regular navigation is available, as the page is formatted to look like the rest of the Web site, thereby not causing too much alarm to your visitors. You can also place ads on the page for additional traffic, if you like. However, since the person is already a bit frustrated, keeping the page ad free, for the most part, might be a better option.

"Let's take a look and see what we need to do to implement these type of error pages. As you'll see, it's not that difficult. The requirements are pretty simple: you must have PHP on your Web server; and you need to make sure that you are allowed to use custom error pages. Most Web hosts running the Apache operating system on their servers can accommodate both of these requirements so they shouldn't really be a problem."

Complete Story

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