1:00 AM
Paul B
One of the coolest things about the new blogger interface is the ability to create custom 404 error messages when someone hits a page on your blog that doesn't exist. Users of Wordpress have pretty much always had this, but us poor Blogger users have not.
Having the ability to use your own is nice because you can put up a custom message telling people to search your home page for the article they are looking for. It keeps them engaged, and on your site. Or you can just use to to be funny. For example, here are five funny 404 error messages you might want to use:
Here is what my error looks like. It's not as funny as the ones above:
To set this up yourself, just do the following:
- When you first login to Blogger, click on the drop down menu to the left of the menu you want to add the custom 404 error message to, and click Settings.
- Next, in the menu on the left under Settings, click on Search Preferences.
- In the section that says Errors and Redirections, click the Edit link next to Custom Page Not Found. You will see a text box. In there you can type out your message, or use HTML to embed an image. Images must be no bigger than 550x280.
Once that is setup, now any time people try to visit a page on your blog that doesn't exist, they will get your new custom message!
