The 57 Most Creative 404 Pages in 2010
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It’s so annoying when you click on a link and you’re met with those annoying words, “404 – Page Not Found.”
404 is the error that you receive when you try to visit a url that doesn’t actually exist. For example, the address http://www.sitesketch101.com/imsupersmart is not areal page so it will kick back an error letting you know that there is no such page on the server.
When most people hit a 404 page, they will immediately leave your site not to return unless…. Unless your 404 page is so creative that your visitor’s interest is piqued enough to drive them into your site. Here’s 50 pages that might inspire you to build your 404 page into something great.
Product Planner
Duoh
Jack Fig
Suspended Animations
Chris Glass
News Pond
Hoot Suite
Gog
CSS Remix
Pattern Tap
Frye / Wiles
Heinz
iStock Photo
Hornets 24-7
Mixx
Wufoo
ClearSpring
deviantArt
ColdINK
Rocket Theme
Mozilla
Srawsm
Ferdaze
Habrahabr
YouCastr
Propeller
WooThemes
Cuoma
Club Penguin
Blue Daniel
Social Thing
D20 SRD
Kochatelier
Amorphia Apparel
Digital Mash
iFolder Links
Kidmondo
24-7 Media
Rubber Ducky
Just Creative Design
Ook
Deaxon
Rush 68
Github
Student Market
Nick Ciske
Light Post Creative
Fuelly
Zanami
Centerd
Dawdle
Cartoon Network
Jotsai
Surfing on Static
Christopher Hooper said:
These are all creative 404 pages. It is also important to note in order to keep visitors from leaving the 404 page is to have your blogs archives or a selection of post to refer them back to. This works very well to keep your visitors from just leaving the site.
Nicholas Cardot said:
That’s a great point. I’ve actually seen some people redirect their 404 pages back to the homepage in an effort to accomplish that same effect.
Website Design Brisbane said:
Brilliant list. The subway 404 was brilliant.
Very nice. Also, it seems: http://www.cgcraft.com/404 was down for the count. Even the 404 could not be found.. 
Nicholas Cardot said:
Good catch. That’s weird. I’ve removed it from the list.
izzat aziz said:
that just great, 404 design always took people attention. Like Christopher say above, yup it really important to make sure reader know that even what they looking for is not there, there are much more other useful stuff that may interest theme.
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Helmi | Huzzer Magazine said:
Site with more focus on its functionality more than design that can be take into consideration while making our 404 page is Problogger 404 page.
http://www.problogger.net/404/
Ron Leyba said:
Blue Daniel, Dawdle, D20 SRD and of course SS101 are my personal choice. They are all great and really eye catchy.
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Technshare said:
i lik the youcastr one its very nice and simple and thanks for the post ..nicholas
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Adrienne said:
Very creative. I use Blogger so I don’t think I can create a 404 page. There should be links from the archives like Woo Themes’ 404 like Chris Hopper said.
I wouldn’t use sound like Ferdaze. I turn my sound off and if I didn’t know what a 404 page meant I would close the window and go to another site.
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Tony M said:
Those 404′s are awesome and inspire me to finally get around to creating mine.
But Nicholas, how in the world did you comprise this list?
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Mikkel 'DaneBlogger' Juhl said:
some of these are good, though I think some of these aren’t that creative.
I think Twitter’s could have done better, especially compared to the “overcapacity whale” – then that 404 is disappointing.
I’d expect much more fun from Twitter :p
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ATOzTOA said:
Very innovative… great way to keep your visitors
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Anne Moss said:
I agree with Mikkel – The Twitter one is boring. The others are pretty cool though – thanks for sharing!
There’s something nice about people making an effort to design a page they don’t really want anyone to see…
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Chris said:
It is annoying to hit a 404 page. I actually visited one on my own site today and realized it was kind of ugly and wouldn’t exactly inspire confidence in a random visitor.
I will have to use some of these examples as inspiration.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Chris » That’s the way to do it. Let these examples inspire you on to greatness.
Jasmine Henry from System Fail News said:
The amount of times I’ve seen the “failwhale” on Twitter is crazy and the page is incredibly annoying. At least with some of the other 404 pages they have search boxes or suggestions of where to go next.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Jasmine Henry from System Fail News » Ha ha. That’s a good point. Their fail whale is pretty annoying, but I still think that it’s a creative approach to it.
JS said:
Woah, I didn’t know there are such 404 webpages. ALright I’m a net dummy and thanks for sharing this web design info.
Cheers!
twit : iagdint
Nicholas Cardot said:
JS » There are so many options for what you can transform your 404 page into. I’m glad that you were able to learn something new. That’s what this site is all about.
New York Web Designer said:
If some people only knew how important a 404 error page really is, I see big companies making this mistake too, losing out on traffic and sales, after I started really using them, it’s responsible for $***’s extra monthly… I use one that I saw up here
Eric B. said:
My 404 page looks so boring compared to these! I’ll need to work on that.
Here’s another great 404 page: Blizzard.com
http://us.blizzard.com/404pagethatdoesnotexist
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Jasmine Henry from System Fail News said:
The FailWhale from Twitter is a good example of an error page at its best. It may be one of the most annoying pages ever known to man but it’s so creative and well designed that it’s memorable, what every error page should be.
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Dennis Edell said:
Very creative indeed. I’m still trying to learn how to do this simply.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Dennis Edell » I know that with WordPress is meant modifying the 404.php to get it to look the way that you like it.
Technshare said:
nice…site..man
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Mike Stenger said:
Awesome list Nick! I was trying to find one of my favorites but there’s too many good ones. Hootsuite’s was pretty funny but so are a bunch of others.
I also thought Heinz’s was pretty creative (and catchy). Don’t see a lot of big brands have custom 404 pages then again, probably not a ton of people see them in the first place.
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Lee Ka Hoong said:
These designers have really great 404 error page on their blog and site! Between, why not you include your 404 error page in the list Nick? You have a nice 404 error page as well.
Regards,
Lee
Nicholas Cardot said:
Lee Ka Hoong » Thanks Lee. I included my site in another recent post and I don’t want to toot my own horn too often. People might not like that.
rabsin_d said:
Cool! Never thought about it… I’ll try to make one myself.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
That one from blizzard is very cool. Now I want to start a whole new collection of awesome 404 pages and use that as the first one in the list.
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Dennis Edell said:
Ah yes OK, something for my designer to do. lol
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rabsin_d said:
Cool! Once I’m done with my 404 page, I’ll show it to you if it gets qualified as a creative 404 page
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quadrillio said:
Great idea and eaycatching post. Love to please my eyes.
Nice work.
Ben said:
These are great! I especially like your’s and Mixx’s 404 page.
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Olusegun said:
Fuelly kind of copied twitter’s twamu when there is an overload.
I like the research efforts. how long did it take?
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Olusegun » I don’t exactly know. It took a while.
Max R. Scheer said:
Great collection and thanks so much for including one of mine!
Made my day
ESN said:
Wow pretty designs.
I just realised that my 404 page is very similar to that of YouCastr and Github: ttp://eisabainyo.net/weblog/oops
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FlashMoto said:
Some of the 404 pages look really creative. But have you seen FlashMoto 404 page? The most colorful, I guess
http://www.flashmoto.com/404
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Dev | Technshare said:
cool and eaycatching post
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Dev | Technshare » Thanks. I’m glad that you like it.
Ah Hong said:
Nick, great share. I was thinking to redesign my 404 page after comparing those in your list.
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Kole said:
The best: http://www.sidesmedia.com/404
Vinish Parikh said:
That was quite creative as well as funny
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Marijan Sivric said:
Hahaha…I really like this list! Even the 404 pages are looking good these days!
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Ranni said:
Here is another example for you:
http://site-o-matic.net/404
Eman Cruz said:
Yeah! It’s cool haha. I literally spent five minutes just staring at the opening and closing elevator door; cool.
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Eman Cruz said:
Before I learned about 404 pages, I usually push the “X” button and look for other sites instead. Now, that I have more knowledge about the Internet, I know that people who don’t know what a 404 is, are lost traffic that might not reach your site of blog ever again.
The lesson is: you also need to focus on your 404 pages if you don’t want another lost potential reader, due to a 404.
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Sam | Freelance Web Designer Birmingham said:
I couldn’t agree more – my attitude used to be “Well if someone has landed on a 404, it’s their fault”.
How naive I was!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Exactly. Every visitor has the potential of becoming a regular reader, but you first have to do something to grab their attention.
Jake said:
404 pages can crop up for tons of reasons – always best to make sure they get to where they want, even if IS their fault.
marc said:
it would be great if a 404 page could show relevant articles based on the typed url, or if there are no relevant articles show the latest articles
Nicholas Cardot said:
I used to agree with that, but I’m becoming convinced that if you can’t provide exactly what they’re looking for then they’re going to head somewhere else unless you can really grab their attention.
Alex said:
I like third and last one. On my website you also can find creative 404 page. So check it now.
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