Should we make our own 404 pages for our beautiful bespoke sites?

[Doobox (Doobox Software)]

@swilliam

What are the benefits of doing this -vs- just adding the full url of the 404 page to the .htaccess file?

This makes me think you think that the htaccess file is only read if there is an error?
That is not the case.

[jakobssystems (Tomas Jakobs)]

[swilliam (scott williams)]

No, I just wanted more info, there are already several lines in the .htaccess because of site move/rebuild and a lot of 301 redirects.

Was just curious if putting in the full url to the 404 page was a problem.

[Doobox (Doobox Software)]

@swilliam

Was just curious if putting in the full url to the 404 page was a problem.

Well you could do this :

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . http://www.yoursite.com/404.html [L,R=301]

But there is no need.
Without line 2 that checks for a request to a non existent file, I can’t see how else you’d incorporate a full url to a 404.

Or if you mean if you did this :

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yoursite.com/404.html

Would that solve the page relative links issue, then no. That would not change that issue.

[swilliam (scott williams)]

The second one is what I was referring to.
When I did that it seemed to fix the problem, I will however , change it to your instructions.

Thanks

[rollemtam (Mat Mellor)]

Thanks Gary, lifesaver!