Inspired by other sites’ 404s and ready to create your own work of error art? Here is some information to get you started.

Why you need a custom 404
What makes a good 404 error page?
Force Internet Explorer to display your error and not its own
Using your logfiles to catch 404s
Using redirects
Using robots.txt

For technical information about configuring your server to show your custom 404 page, choose the type of server your site is hosted on:

Apache (by far the most common web server)
Microsoft IIS
nginx

Don’t know your web server? Try NetCraft. Enter your domain, and it will tell you what webserver it’s running. (Thanks to tx for the tip!)

Got info on servers we haven’t covered? Please let us know and we’ll add it! (We’ll give you credit and everything.) And if you want to print out your 404 masterpiece, a little extra printer ink won’t hurt.