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Designing a website without 404s

pillser.com

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Re: Designing a website without 404s

#33

Post by default-kramer »

rfl890 wrote: post #15
bad_username wrote: post #8

> I am surprised that more websites do not implement it Maybe because it is not a good idea. Masking errors is harmful. The information "what you're looking for is not there" is very important, because it lets users identify that something is wrong. Smart redirection can be outright dangerous: what if I am buying a medication, and the smart website silently replaces the correct drug with something similar but wrong?…

Most people who use this site would use the search bar, which reports errors, and those who directly type it in aren't exactly laypeople.

Lay people certainly might bookmark a medication they buy often, and if "the smart website silently replaces the correct drug with something similar but wrong" they might end up accidentally ordering and even consuming it.

Re: Designing a website without 404s

#34

Post by MrVandemar »

chrismorgan wrote: post #17

WordPress does this sort of thing, or at least can (I don’t know, I’ve only ever been involved with a couple of WordPress sites). It’s obnoxiously awful. You end up with people accidentally relying on non-canonical URLs that subsequently change in meaning, or using links that seem to work but actually give the wrong content and you don’t notice. Both of these are very often much worse than a 404. There’s also an issu…

Agree. When it's clear the content is no longer there, one of the big values of a 404 page is that you can at least hit Archive.org straight afterward to see if there's a version there.

Re: Designing a website without 404s

#36

Post by conductr »

dylan604 wrote: post #16
conductr wrote: post #4

> the implementation is so simple that I am surprised that more websites do not implement it I might be wrong but for me it’s because IRL this isn’t an issue. Users shouldn’t be finding/using random URLs to navigate the site. Where is this broken URL traffic coming from anyway? Are you trying to solve for people that randomly edit the URL and expect it work, most people don’t care about those users getting 404 becaus…

Link rot is a thing. Scroll around some older reddit threads with links and see how many of them are still active. Site redesigns are often the cause of older links rotting to become no longer valid.

Didn’t my comment address that though? That’s not what the author is discussing. The author is trying to make nonexistent URLs resolve. These URLs they’re solving for were never valid.
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