El 4: 16 creative 404 pages to inspire you to overhaul yours

Posted 04 April 2012 12:33pm by Chris Lake with 4 comments

Often, on the web, links break or users type in the wrong URL. Sometimes pages go AWOL. At this point a 404 page is displayed, and I thought I'd compile a few of the more recent ones that I've spotted.

The thing with 404 pages is that they are often overlooked and uncared for. Ours is in need of a humour injection, though it ticks some of the more important best practice boxes by including a search tool, sitemap and link to the homepage.

Based on many of these examples, this post should be filed under inspiration, as opposed to best practice, though if you are going to revamp your own 404 page then be sure to help users dig their way out of the hole they've fallen into.

Briefly, best practice consists of:

Speaking in the right language (avoid error messages like the plague)
Useful navigation (provide the user with some easy options to stay on your website)
A search box (prompt the user to conduct a keyword search to find replacement pages)
The right branding (the page should look like the rest of your website)
Tracking (figure out common entry routes to spot and fix broken links, etc)

If you want to dig deeper then check out this post on 404 pages and best practice (contains some other examples).

A word of warning: some of the following pages will blast techno music through your speakers. Brace yourself.