Maybe you have not realized it, but an Error 404 page exists for all your websites. Want to know how it looks like? You can simply access a page or link that does not exist in your websites, such as http://yoursite.com/123456.html or http://yoursite.com/some-random-url-here. One of my own website hosted with Bluehost gives a default 404 page not found error like this:
It is really boring to see such an error when your website visitors trying to access your web pages. It does not contain any useful information. Can we edit the default 404 error pages for websites? Yes, you can. In this article, we will be using Bluehost as the example to demonstrate how you can edit the default 404 error page for your websites in cPanel.
Custom your Error 404 Page in cPanel
cPanel hosting is quite popular nowadays, so we will focus on cPanel hosting websites in this guide. To access your cpanel quickly you can type and access this URL in your web browser address bar: http://yoursite.com/controlpanel (replace yoursite.com with your own domain name), then log on cPanel with your username and password. Browse through to find the Advanced section in cPanel like this (we are using Bluehost, which offers optimized cPanel, in this demo, if you are using another cPanel hosting service you may find it differs in appearance):
There will be a link to Error pages under the Avanced section. Click on it, you will open a new page like below.
There are two steps to custom your 404 Error page in cPanel with Bluehost.
Step 1. Select your domain name
Since Bluehost allows unlimited domain names and websites under one hosting account, so you need to pick up the domain name which you like to manage its error pages.
Step 2. Select and edit 404 error page
There are many different error types and pages you can edit from cPanel. These errors and pages are separated into two tabs by Bluehost, Edit Common Error Codes and Show All HTTP Error Status Codes. You can find 404 error from both of the two tabs. You will be able to click to open and edit your 404 error page from there.
If you want to know why your site visitors would browse pages that do not exist and how to fix the 404 errors, you can refer to this easy to follow guide: How to fix website 404 page not found errors using Google webmaster tools?
