[WEB4LIB] Changing the default "page not found" page?

[Chiara Berlingo]

Spencer-

Check out the resources below that talk about the 404 message.  They 
give good examples and tips on how to improve yours.  You can check 
out the one where I work if you go to 
http://www.rowland.org/error.html.  Basically _anything_ you can add 
will be more helpful to your users than the default "404 Error:  File 
not found".

Improving the Dreaded 404 Error Message: 
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/404_improvement.html

Web Watch 404's:  http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue20/404/

The 404 error at Harvey Mudge College (I based our new 404 error 
message on this one): http://www.hmc.edu/foo.html

As far as getting your new and helpful 404 message onto your server, 
it all depends on the type of server you have.  We currently use 
WebSTAR on our Mac server and it was very easy to change it myself. 
When we had a UNIX server I had to have our network guy do it for me 
since I don't know UNIX well enough to do that.

-Chiara Berlingo

>The error message that people get is just the default*.  I know there
>must be a way of changing this (and incorporating some elements
>to help me track down where the reference to the missing page came
>from) but I wondered if anyone had done this or had some examples
>on their site?

_____
Technical Services Librarian
The Rowland Institute for Science
Cambridge, Massachusetts
617.497.4616
617.497.4627 (fax)
http://www.rowland.org/