Custom 404 Page

  • Unknown's avatar
    ricecake · Member ·

    While the standard 404 page text is cute, it’s really not what I want to have on my site. How do we modify this text to something more grownup? eh?

    Thanks,

    Julie

  • Unknown's avatar
    thesacredpath · Member ·

    We need a link to the blog you are talking about. There are two types of wordpress blogs and in one you can change it and in the other you cannot.

  • Unknown's avatar
    ricecake · Member ·

    The one that needs changing is actually for a friend. Her blog is at http://miamired.wordpress.com/ .

    What two types of blogs are there and how can you tell which this one is?

  • Unknown's avatar
    ricecake · Member ·

    I think, perhaps, this is a matter of terminology. To me, types of blogs would be personal, professional, business, etc. Are you referring to Free v. Premium services?

    Again, thank you,

    Julie

  • Unknown's avatar
    mike99362 · Member ·

    WordPress.ORG the keepers of the software for self hosted sites and WordPress.COM sites hosted here. You can do custom 404 pages and more (crash the whole site and server if you work at it) if you have a self hosted site using the WordPress.ORG software.

    At WordPress.COM you are limited to the 404 page the Theme designer did. Each Theme is a bit different.

    For more on the difference: http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

  • Unknown's avatar
    ricecake · Member ·

    Thank you Mike, but I fully understand the difference between the Open Source Software and the Hosting of a WordPress blog. I certainly wouldn’t post a question about the software at this forum nor one about the dot com specific hosting at the other forums. I can see that many people have this confusion, but I do not happen to be one of them.

    The FAQs here have one entry related to 404 errors. It is when a new blogger removes the Hello World post and doesn’t replace it with anything. This is completely unrelated to customizing the 404 message. A forum search turned up no questions or answers as well. Perhaps the issue is more that bloggers at WordPress.com don’t expect much to customize?

    Initially, I was hoping for a hook that would allow us to change the messages. The current webhooks, while wonderful, just don’t accommodate what I want to accomplish for my friend.

    In the interest of saving time, if what Mike says is true about being limited to the theme’s 404 page,

    Do any of the available themes has an Options/Settings page where we could enter custom text for a 404 page?

    (It would certainly be easy to strip any php or javascript from the box, as WP.com already does this in many other instances.) I know of several outside the WP.com limitations but am not familiar enough with the ones here to answer this without testing each individually.

    Thanks for your help,

    Julie

  • Unknown's avatar
    mike99362 · Member ·

    I am not aware of any 404 page changes you can do.

    But I see TSP & RC in the Forum and they have more experience with workarounds than I – with a bit of luck they will stop here and let you know if there is something that can be done with the 404 page.

  • Unknown's avatar
    hallluke · Member ·

    Here is an excellent link to how different themes display their 404 and error pages. There is no option to customise the text that appears, it is chosen by the original designer and hard-coded into the theme.

  • Unknown's avatar
    ricecake · Member ·

    “Panos Says:
    April 9, 2010 at 06:12

    I’d like to be able to write my own 404 message; but the average wp.com user probably doesn’t even know what a 404 is, so I guess it’s reasonable that we don’t have that option in wp.com blogs.”

    Bummer. Thanks for the awesome link, halluke!

    Julie

  • Unknown's avatar
    raincoaster · Member ·

    You cannot customize the 404 pages.

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