Missing Pages

By David McKelvey

When a page no longer exists on a website, you will often find yourself at a page called the 404 page. (The 404 refers to a code that is also issued with the page.)

We’ve revamped our 404 page to make it a lot more fun, but at the same time, we’ve made it much harder for you to end up there. Here is what it checks for before you see the actual 404:

1. Is the requested page known to be “Gone”? If so, tell people it’s gone.
2. Does the requested page have a known redirect? If so, send them there.
3. Does the requested page match the old legacy.lclark.edu path formats? If so, then check to see if there’s newer content available http://www.lclark.edu (also via redirect) and send them there or if not, send the people to the legacy page if it exists.

Otherwise:

1. Check with the organizations directory to see if there are good home pages to offer as alternatives in the 404 page; and,
2. Check with the search engine for pages that might match our results to offer in the 404 page.

Then you’ll see the 404 page. If you’d like to see it, here are some pages that will force the 404:

http://www.lclark.edu/college/everything/
http://www.lclark.edu/college/departments/foreign_languages/latin_american_studies/about.html

As noted, we’re looking for more images and fun, cheeky text to keep people happy even as they get a result that often doesn’t make them so. Feel free to make suggestions on the Green.