Use of 404 pages

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by ecchi

Do you mean "fake 404s" or genuine ones ? If you mean genuine 404's then I find it is best to send them to the site's main index page (so that they can hopefully find a page that works) and also fix the 404. The way I do this is by sending them to a Perl script that sends me an email with the URL that 404d then redirects the surfer to site's main index page.

I mean genuine 404s, but I should be clear on where they come from. I've got a lot of requests for pages that don't exist and never existed. Don't know if it's surfers looking for hidden pages or what, but my error log is full of requests for odd pages that have never been and never will be on my sites. The domain with the most 404 requests if Fetish Philes, and on that one I've got an error message with a link back to the main pages, then an FPA in case someone wants to click on it instead of going back to the root domain.

I've never really been one to use agressive consoles in the past, but it was thinking maybe this was an application where it would work. After hearing Opti's experience I think I'll just try rotating FPAs to see if I can find one that really sells.

Thanks for the input guys.

[ecchi]

I get that on expired domains that I purchased. I find it another good reason to throw 404's at my index page. If it is people going to old bookmarks or coming from old links, it gets them into my site. But if it is people looking for hidden pages, it will soon get them fed up enough to bugger off.