Looking at my web stats I was surprised the other day when I saw how many “404 Not Found” errors were reported. At this point I have no idea how to analyse my stats to reveal exactly what queries are being attempted; Or if there are broken links - where the refering page is.
Maybe this is a normal “prodding for cracks” internet occurance performed by curiously bored people or brainless bots. In time I expect gain some wisdom on this, right now I can only assume people are looking for something on my site they are not finding.
One particularly appealing idea seems to turn the otherwise dead end URLs into search queries - serving up a list of potential pathways into the site to even the most random page requests. This is beyond my effort level at the moment but I would like to, at least, include a search field on the page.
Even this provides me with significant study - so for the moment I’m going to add a link to this entry on my 404 page and encourage visitors (at least the humans) to tell me what they were looking for by typing a few words into the comments form. I’ll naturally be surprised if (m)any bother, but hey, why not.
If I can leave you with a relevant smile perhaps this 404 error page (link removed - no longer interesting) is the best example. Warning this wit may be lost on you if you are not familiar with a particular model of Peugeot.
Oliver Boermans works as an interactive media designer in Adelaide, South Australia. This is his web interface — a place for Ollie to rant, reflect and share. Read more about Ollie
Comments
Post your comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)