Google Webmaster Central has added a new feature that aims to make website visitors’ encounter with the perennial problem and most dreaded 404 “Not found” page a more pleasant if not useful experience. Although there has been manual work-around to solve this problem, mostly by editing the 404 php pages and customizing it to direct users to other parts of a site, it has been a tedious process, until now.
The Webmaster Central has added a new feature called “Enhance 404 pages.” What it basically does is to allow webmasters embed a widget on their custom 404 pages. This widget suggests other URLs that users may wish to visit when they land on the 404 pages.
Specifically the 404 widget suggests link to the site’s parent directory, sitemap webpage or a site search query suggestion and search box.
To get the code for the 404 widget, just head on to the Webmaster Tools and get the 404 widget code for your registered site and embed it into your site’s 404 page code. Best part is, you can pretty much customize the look and feel of your customized 404 page with a few minor tweaks of the widget’s HTML code.
Simple and yet a very useful feature indeed.
