Here is a simple way to make a 404 page you can easily edit as a normal page from the wordpress admin area.
What is a 404 page
A 404 page is the page someone visiting your website gets sent to if they type in an address on you site that doesn’t exist. for example https://www.thewpguy.com.au/whoops will take you to my 404 page. Unless of course I’ve been hacked and then you may be redirected to an ad for performance enhancing medications for the bedroom. Best of luck with that click…
Now back to the lesson, it takes 3 simple steps
Step 1
Just create a page called 404.php
paste the following code into it substituting your website url for http://www.website.com
<?php
$URL= get_bloginfo('url');
header("Location: http://www.website.com/404-page/");
?>
Step 2
upload the file with and ftp program like filezilla. (You will need to know your ftp address, username and password to do this step.)
Upload the file to the folder of the current theme you are using or the child theme if you are using a child theme.
Note about parent and child themes
For example if you were using a StudioPress.com theme it actually used 2 theme folders one called genesis which is the parent theme. Don’t put it there as parent themes get upgrades to ut could disappear.
So if you are using a StudioPress child theme like say Enterprise you would upload the 404.php file to the enterprise folder.
Step 3
Create a page called 404-page (or whatever name you used in the code example) and add whatever message or archive widgets etc you like to the page and you’re done.
Now you can put whatever message you like on the page you created. Maybe a link to the home page, your contact page and some of the most popular pages or posts on your website.
Step 4
Read your twitter replies, or write an email. Have a coffee. Remember I did say there were only 3 steps.
I’ve been building WordPress websites for over a decade, spoken at conferences around the world, and taught countless people how to build and maintain their sites.
I know its a jungle out there finding the right people for website development.
But I’m here to help.
Author Profile – Tony Cosentino
