Question
Custom error pages are a great--but often overlooked--marketing tool. They also offer your web site another layer of hacker protection. They may take a little time to set up, but you only have to do it once.
Marketing Tool
By providing links on custom error pages, you keep potential customers on your site. You can also use custom error pages to pass along tips for navigating your web site. Make your visitor comfortable with your site, and they are more likely to return.
Hacker Security
The standard error pages provided by different Operating Systems can provide clues to how your web site is run, just by being there. Any experienced techie can tell you which server version you're running just by looking at the default error pages. Once a hacker knows that you are running Apache, or FrontPage, they can tailor their attack to that software's vunerabilities.
Creating custom error pages are well worth the effort. Here are some tutorials and instruction on creating and using custom error pages:
http://www.plinko.net/404/custom.asp
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articl...errorpages.htm
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/custom404.shtml
Answer
I wasn't aware of the 'hacker' ability with the error pages!
I've had custom error pages for some time.
Answer
Great topic,
I will have to read those links when I get a chance -
I used to have custom error pages but whenever I would test them
they would still be the regular IE 404 error showing up ...
So eventually I took them down ...
~ gem ~
Answer
Gem... here's why...
<!--
- Unfortunately, Microsoft has added a clever new
- "feature" to Internet Explorer. If the text of
- an error's message is "too small", specifically
- less than 512 bytes, Internet Explorer returns
- its own error message. You can turn that off,
- but it's pretty tricky to find switch called
- "smart error messages". That means, of course,
- that short error messages are censored by default.
- IIS always returns error messages that are long
- enough to make Internet Explorer happy. The
- workaround is pretty simple: pad the error
- message with a big comment like this to push it
- over the five hundred and twelve bytes minimum.
- Of course, that's exactly what you're reading
- right now.
-->
Here's the custom error page for here..
www.here.com/some-page-that-doesn't-exist.html
-Jim