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How do I customize error pages?

Question

How do I customize my error pages

Answer

Customizing your error pages is rather simple to do, it involves a two step process. This guide will walk you through that process

Summary

The Concept
Htaccess
The File
Common mistakes

The concept

The concept is simple. A visitor to your site comes in, something is awry. Is your file missing? Is there an error? Do they not have permission to view the file? You don't want a generic file telling this to them, right? You want the user to feel like they're still on your site. This is done with two very easy steps

Htaccess

In order to tell your website where to send viewers, you need to give it specific directives. These directives are placed in a special file, named .htaccess (note: there is a dot in front of the characters) in your public_html folder. This should already exist, but if not, you can create it using your favorite editor, and upload it, or you can use the file manager.
In this file, place the following contents:

ErrorDocument 400 http://www.domain.com/error-400.html
ErrorDocument 401 http://www.domain.com/error-401.html
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.domain.com/error-403.html
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.domain.com/error-404.html
ErrorDocument 500 http://www.domain.com/error-500.html

Of course, there are more error codes, but these are the basics
Of course, you'll have to change your file names, and domain name before placing these in .htaccess

The File

Now that you've got the .htaccess file created, you want to create the error document. Simply load up your favorite html editor, create the documents you listed above , and place them in your public_html folder. Easy peasy

Common Mistakes

The most common mistake when creating custom error files is placing them where the user can't see them.
For example, if your URL is http://www.google.com , and people shouldn't be able to access http://www.google.com/admin , make sure your documents point to http://www.google.com/document.html, NOT http://www.google.com/admin/document.html .
The second most common mistake? Using relative paths in your .htaccess file. This would be something like

ErrorDocument 400 error-400.html
ErrorDocument 401 error-401.html
ErrorDocument 403 error-403.html
ErrorDocument 404 error-404.html
ErrorDocument 500 error-500.html

This can also trigger the above error, with regards to not being able to access the document.

Still need help?

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