The full overview in 7 steps:

1. Optimize the existing error pages
2. Improve internal links
3. Improve external links
4. NEVER remove pages from your site, but archive them
5. Redirect some common misspellings
6. Monitor error pages
7. Monitor search queries

Plus two bonus tips:

1. commercialization of the 404-page
2. keep your content up-to-date

The road map, Part 1: optimize existing error pages

Step 1: optimize existing error pages
On the web many articles can be found which explain how an error page can be made as user friendly as possible to decrease the percentage of visitors who leave your site without viewing more pages. The general view is that a 404-page must be user-friendly and that you should help visitors as good as possible by finding what they sought for. Place a few popular links or a search field on the error page. The other recommendations have already been extensively discussed at various sites, so I give merely a few links:

Additional information:

• General information can be found on Wikipedia and Evolt.org. More technical information can be found on the web designers magazine A List Apart.

Step 2: improve internal links
Prevention is better than cure. Try to avoid visitors to stream at the 404-page as much as possible, how good this page may be. A comprehensive scan shows if all links within your site (both internal and ‘outgoing’ links) are still functioning properly. The free program Xenu Link Sleuth is an excellent tool, but there are obviously more tools that do the same. The inventory of your internal links can be done automatically, but the corrections are mostly done by hand.

Additional information:

• The tool Xenu Link Sleuth. A simple Google query provides enough other tools;

Step 2.1: adding favicon.ico
This part actually belongs in step 2, but I thought it was important enough to mention it separately. Internet Explorer asks for the so-called ‘favicon.ico’ file at each Web page with a browser view. This is the small icon on the left side of the address bar of a Web browser, you must have seen it sometimes. If there is no file called ‘favicon.ico’ in the root of your website (http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico) it won’t be found and Internet Explorer generates an error message. You can easily prevented this common error by placing a favicon on your site.

Additional information:

• Technical and substantive “how-to” for dealing with favicons: http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2005/02/no-favicon/

Step 3: improving external / incoming links
Once if the internal link structure is okay, the next step is to improve the links from other sites to your site. These are the so-called inbound links or links. The inventory could also be automated, for example, with the free program back link analyzer, with the Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools. The correction of incoming links is possibly more labor intensive, because you are relying on third parties. However it is worthwhile to take action on this part.
Tip: If you’re improving your external links, make sure the incoming links contain decent descriptive texts with keywords (for example: “web design and seo weblog” instead of “weblog” as link text) .

Additional information:

1. An excellent tool unfortunately with limited export opportunities is Back link analyzer;
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer: gives accurate information about incoming links;
3. Google Webmaster Tools gives an overview of all incoming links for a website. These data are not available for third parties, so you should set the webmaster tools environment with a Google account (is a winner anyway).

Step 4: NEVER remove pages, but archive them
On the news section of your site is an article from 2006. When it was placed, there was pretty much coverage by the media and the article was linked by several blogs that discussed the content in detail. But anno 2008 the news is not relevant anymore. Whatever you do, do not delete the article! The article is a while on your site already, it is included in the index of Google and Yahoo and has perhaps built up some pagerank/relevance/history. It would be an eternal shame to throw that away. So, keep it! Put it in an archive; if necessary, put an additional comment on this article that the news might be outdated and comes from the archive. This also prevents errors when people have followed the old link.

Additional information:

• Cool URIs don’t change: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI

Part 2: installation of extra usability

Step 5: redirect some common misspellings
Are certain misspellings often made on your website? Is the word ‘contat’ tapped in by many visitors when the search for your ‘contact’ page? This is a random example, but you know what I mention. If this occurs frequently, you can redirect visitors automatically (with a so-called ’301 redirect ‘) to the proper ‘contact’ page. You can find a clear overview of the different 301-techniques on the Onetomarket site.
Please note: build in an additional warning for those who have landed on the page by using a ‘misspelling’. Show a message like: ‘We have automatically redirected you to this page, while you searched for the page ‘mispelings.html’. Make sure if you want to bookmark or link this page, that you use the correct address. Or something similar to this effect.

Part 3. Aftercare: monitoring

Step 6: Monitor error pages

To have access to the amount of visitors which comes into contact with error messages on your site, you must use your statistics package.
With the free Google Analytics package, you must set a little by your self. For example, are certain misspellings made (see step 5) and which websites provide false links that causes’ bounces’. This information could also be provided through Google webmaster tools, which shows so called “crawl errors’. WordPress users can use log-404. This WordPress plugin logs error messages and makes a network overview of the last 100.

Additional information:

• Tracking 404 pages in Google Analytics;
• Debug using Google Webmaster Tools;
• And a WordPress plugin that effectively logs error pages.

Step 7: Monitor search queries
Another aspect that can be monitored, concerns the so-called referrers. Most statistical packages would not only provide information about which site provides you visitors, but also, as they came through Google, which keywords they had used in Google when they found your site. Google Analytics works in this context with ‘keyword considerations (‘All reports > ‘Marketing Optimization’> ‘Keyword considerations ‘).
These ‘considerations’ are nothing more than suggestions for keywords that you could use in your site. People were looking for these and thought that they would find them on your site. Why not give them what they want? At least, as long as it’s relevant.
We are not very satisfied with the operation of this feature of Analytics, but because anyone can use Analytics for free, we mentioned it here. Other, but from better quality and also more specialised are the following tools: HitTail, 103Bees and the Search Meter WordPress plugin.

Additional information:

• Wikipedia on referers;
• Search Meter WordPress Plugin. Keyword suggestions from the WordPress interface;
• HitTail: http://www.hittail.com/
• 103Bees: http://www.103bees.com/

Part 4. Bonus tip: 404-pages as part of the sales process

1: commercialization of the 404-page
In some cases, an error page can be used to encourage the sales on the site rather than merely provide navigation to continue to search the site.

A good example is the 404-page of Apple. At first glance, there is a ‘normal’ 404-page, there is a slightly accusing text which says that I as a visitor might have typed in something wrong (there is some improvement needed) and there are links that leads a visitor deeper in to the site.

The most striking part of that page is a trio of images of approximately 175 by 150 pixels with information about certain offers, promotions or new products. So called banners, and they rotate. For example press several times on F5 (Ctrl-R for Safari) and you will see that each time a different banner will be shown on the page. That is a very clever action from Apple. On the 404-page are teasers that are popular. Apple makes a virtue of necessity and this principle can be applied to all kinds of sites!

Additional information:

• Apple error page: http://www.apple.com/error.html

Tip 2: keep the content up-to-date
Suppose your company site is growing and there will be new jobs at your site. For some functions you are looking for new people continuously, while others already have been filled in. It is also possible that certain functions are fulfilled now, but they will be brought back on the site in the future.
In all cases, you are better off not to remove the vacancy pages, even though the functions are already fulfilled.
In the first place the pages build up a history in search engines, in links from job sites, perhaps even on the personal weblog of someone who has responded.
Secondly, it is a cold trick to add an additional piece of text on the vacancy page in question: “at this moment this vacancy is fulfilled, but there is always place for enthusiastic, talented hard workers” or something similar. That is a lot better than ’404 Not found’….

Preventing 404s in 7 steps is a post from: Onetomarket

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Each website is – to a greater or lesser extent – updated, changed and there are even entire pages or domains removed.
Now that your website has been renovated completely. The file names are changed (for example index.html to index.php), etc.
Of course this is fantastic: a Web site must be improved continuously! But what if you want to get rid of the old pages without being concerned about people who stream old links to the old pages and then land on a ’404 not found ‘error? That’s not all, search engines like Google and Yahoo and MSN may have the old urls in their index and send visitors to the now deleted pages …

The 301 redirect

The best way to redirect those pages is to redirect with the so-called ’301 ‘. What does this 301 redirect do, The redirect automatically forwards to a new page when it is called. This makes the 301 redirect the best, not only because it automatically forwards (which the ’302 redirect also does), but it also does it safely, without that you have to fear for penalties from the search engines.
Specifically spoken the 301 redirect tells the browser or search engine that the page is moved and sends the client (browser or search engine) automatically to the new address. It tells them, in spoken word: ‘Hey, this page was moved here and this is the new address! “.
For you as the reader, the technique will be far more important, so we go further with the technique now.

There are several ways to use a 301 redirect: PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, JSP (JAVA), IIS, ColdFusion, CGI/PERL and finally with Htaccess. The most powerful technique is to use the so-called Apache mod_rewrite module in httpd.conf or .htaccess.

Redirect with HTML or Javascript

You want to know how you can use HTML or Javascript to redirect?! Very simple: Don’t!
In the past, the so-called “meta-tag refresh redirection method is often abused with the aim to spamming. The result is that the use of it is penalized by the search engines. So don’t use it.

301 redirect with .htaccess

The big advantage of using .htaccess is the fact that redirects can be regulated on a meta-level. Unlike with the mentioned programming languages .htaccess can redirect an entire directory.
It works as follows:
1. Create a file named “.htaccess” (note the dot in the beginning!) and place it in the root of the website;
2. Open the .htaccess file in a code-editor and add the following lines to the .htaccess file:
Redirect 301 /old/old.html http://www.yoursite.com/new.html
Please note: the first part of the statement concerns the path of the old files FROM the top level of the site (So without the ‘http://www’). Also note that there is a space between these elements:
redirect 301 (The instruction that the page has been moved permanently)
/old/old.html (The old relative path en name)
http://www.you.com/new.html (new complete path and name)
Also notice that it is not required for pages to redirect to a new domain name. This can be done within a domain too!

301 redirect with Mod_Rewrite

There is much more possible within the world of redirecting with mod_rewrite, a module of the Apache Web server.
This is an incredibly powerful module where regular expressions are used, for example, to flare dynamically redirects. I show an useful example below.
When someone links to your site, they don’t always exactly use the way you prefer.
If someone links to http://www.yoursite.com and someone else links to http://yoursite.com, then Google will use a separate page rank for each url.

Yes, that’s clumsy, but it’s a fact. You can customize it with the code below.
Incidentally, those who use sitemaps in Google webmaster central, can indicate under the “preferred domain” submenu, whether they prefer Google to index the www-variant or the www-free version of their Web site.
RewriteEngine On
rewritecond %{http_host} ^yoursite.com
rewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.yoursite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

301 redirect with IIS

1. Use the right mouse button in the Internet Services Manager to choose which folder should be redirected;
2. select the radio button that says “a redirection to a URL ‘;
3. fill in the page where to will be directed;
4. Check “The exact URL entered above” and “A permanent redirection for this resource”;
5. Click on ‘Apply’.

301 redirect with Cold Fusion

For most server-side scripting and programming languages is the use of 301-redirect quite simple.

In Cold Fusion it works as follows:

301 redirect with PHP

Use the following code:
<?php
header( "Status: 301 Moved Permanently" );
header( "Location: http://www.yoursite.com/" );
exit(0); // this is optional, but is recommended. This will help prevent unnecessary output?>
ps: The Microsoft IIS server crashes if you use the following (more common) used line:
header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); ?>


301 redirect with ASP

Use the following code:
< %@ Language=VBScript %>
< %
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", "http://www.yoursite.com /"
%>


301 redirect with ASP.NET

Use the following code:
>

301 redirect with JSP / JAVA

Use the following code:
< %
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( "Location", "http://www.yoursite.com /" );
response.setHeader( "Connection", "close" );
%>
301 redirect with CGI / PERL
Use the following code:
$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(" http://www.yoursite.com / ");
301 redirect with Ruby / Ruby on Rails
Use the following code:
def old_action
headers["Status"] = "301 Moved Permanently"
redirect_to "http://www.yoursite.com/"
end

Disclaimer: we have used these techniques in practice and found out that the operation is quit satisfying. But there are 567897653 ways in which it can go wrong. Therefore the use of these techniques is at your own risk!

301 Redirects: an overview is a post from: Onetomarket

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