By default, Merchant Solutions redirects page not found errors (404) to the homepage of your store. While this does allow visitors to enter your store from the homepage to try and find the item for which they were searching, search engines will continue to index the pages that cannot be found. On the other hand, a poorly designed 404 error page that does not provide information or a means to resume looking for the item may cause shoppers to leave your site.

You can choose to keep the current setting (redirect to store homepage) or create a custom 404 error page to show visitors rather than redirect page not found errors. To use a custom 404 page, you will need to:

• Create the custom 404 page
• Customize your 404 page
• Set the Page Not Found Error Handling to custom 404 error page

Create a custom 404 page

1. Sign in to your My Services page.
2. Click the Store link.
   
3. Go to Store Editor.
   
4. From the Advanced Editor toolbar, go to Contents.
   
5. Click the New button.
   
6. On the Create New Object dialog:
   • In the ID field, enter a page ID for your error page. We recommend making the ID something that is easy to remember and descriptive of the page, such as 404error.
   • Select a Type from the pull-down menu:
     • If you want a page with the same fields as an item, select item as the type.
     • If you want to offer a search box on your custom 404 page, select search as the type.
     • If your site is built with custom HTML pages, select raw-html as the type.
   • Click the Continue button. The new page you created loads in Edit mode so you can begin to customize the page.
   

Customize your 404 page

1. On the Edit screen for your error page:
   • Confirm the Template id.
   • Enter or edit the Name field of the page (Enter descriptive text that alerts the visitor to the problem such as Sorry, Page Not Found.)
   • Upload an image if desired.
   • Enter a Caption.
   
2. Click the Update button when finished.
   
3. Publish when ready.
   
4. Go to the Preferences page accessible from the link in the Site Settings column of the Store Manager to change your Page Not Found Handling setting.

Tip: If you do not have time to create a custom 404 error page, you can enter your store home pageID (index) as the custom 404 page. This will present your store's homepage to shoppers instead of a 404 page, and will also lead to the removal of the outdated links from the search engines' indices.

404 Error Page Best Practices

The following are best practices for 404 error pages gathered from various articles and web sites. Include those that work best for your particular store.

• Make the page look like the other pages of your site but keep the choices to a minimum. Remember that the shopper was most likely trying to find a specific item. If they do not see it, they may hit the Back button and leave. You need to convey information to help them find what they were looking for quickly.
• Include an error message but do not blame the visitor. While the visitor may have mistyped the URL (entering .htm instead of .html), they may also be using a link in search results to a page which no longer exists on your site (such as an out-of-stock item or product no longer offered). You can explain why the problem may have happened (old item, mistyped URL). Use the Name or Headline field to include a header such as Sorry - The page could not be found.
• Include a prominent link to your homepage or site index so shoppers can continue to search for the item.
• Include an email link for customers to report broken links or more importantly order the item for which they were looking.
• Include a search box. If you select Search as the type when creating a new page, the page will automatically include the search box field.
• Include a redirect to your homepage after a period of time. Experts disagree on what is best here. Some sites give visitors enough time to read the error message and then redirect the user automatically to the homepage. Other sites provide ways for the user to search for an item. If you do use a redirect, inform visitors as a courtesy that they will be redirected after a certain amount of time. Allow enough time for visitor to read or search for a product before redirecting them.

Set the Page Not Found Error Handling option to custom 404 error page

1. From Store Manager, go to Preferences.
   
2. Next to Page Not Found Handling, select the Use a custom Store Editor error page option and enter the page ID of your custom 404 error page. Carefully enter only the page ID not the full URL or page ID with the .html extension. Turbify will not check the pageID you enter to determine if it matches an actual page. See Testing below for more information.
   
3. Click the Change button.
   
4. Return to Store Manager and publish your Order Settings.
   

Note: When returning to the Store Manager, you may notice the Publish Order Settings link is active. Changes to the Account Preferences page, where you just selected a page not found handling setting, cause the link to become active. It is not necessary to publish order settings after making a selection.

Testing

You can test this feature by entering a URL to your store to a page that does not exist. If you are taken to your custom 404 page then your setting is correct. If you do not see your custom 404 page, check that you have:

• published your custom 404 error page in the Store Editor.
• entered the correct page ID for the custom 404 page on the Preferences page. Enter only the pageID and not the full URL or the pageID with a file extension such as .html.
• ensure that the page is larger than 512 bytes. Most likely if your page displays any images such as text images or a logo, your page will exceed 512 bytes. You can check the size of the page by viewing the page in your web browser and choosing the Properties command from the File menu. The Properties dialog appears displaying file information including the size.

Note: It is possible, though unlikely, that a visitor would not see your custom 404 error page even if the file size exceeded 512 bytes. Microsoft Windows includes a registry setting whereby a user can set a threshold for showing friendly error messages (from Microsoft) as opposed to the custom 404 error from a server. If the user has set this threshold to a higher value (again unlikely) and your page did not exceed that threshold value, your custom 404 error would not be displayed.

Set the Page Not Found Error Handling option to redirect to store home page

1. From the Store Manager, go to Preferences.
   
2. Select the Redirect page not found errors to my store home page option.
   
3. Click the Change button.
   
4. Return to Store Manager and publish your Order Settings.