A page that Google can’t find !

yes that’s correct and here is the reason…

Millan K

6 min readMay 23, 2021

If you ask me this ?

Is there a page which google (website) can’t find ??

My answer will be YES !.

And that specific page is www.google.com/404

By all means go ahead try it out. Click to see of copy + paste in your browser.

And you will see this.

Screen shot of www.google.com/404 page — https://www.google.com/404 showing Page Not Found Message

— And you will get this error message —

404:

usually pronounced as one of these :

four nought four ( nought coming from Aleph-nought)
four-o-four
four hundred and four
Page not found

The requested URL /404 was not found on this server.

again, what does this `404` means ??️

Putting it in simple words, it means there is no such (web) page named as 404 or 404.html available on the server.
Storage (the server) is a place where all the pages of a website such as www.google.com are saved.

As most of us know, www.google.com is primarily a search engine by its role but also a website which we can access on our browser. That is pretty much the same way we may use any other website.

Interesting fact is that, it holds true not only for google but also for any other websites you may be thinking of now 💭.

Think of Apple, Aws….

Here I have complied a list of some interesting companies and their website displaying 404 page to save you some time, followed by a little more background on what and why this we have to have this page on a website server !

Lets start with Apple : https://www.apple.com/404

Screenshot of https://www.apple.com/404 showing Page Not Found Message — https://www.apple.com/404

How about facebook:

The mobile version redirect’s you to the main login page.
I would say a smart way to handle situation https://m.facebook.com/404.html

✅ Here is how desktop version looks : https://www.facebook.com/404.html

Screenshot of https://www.facebook.com/404.html showing Page Not Found Message — https://www.facebook.com/404.html

ℹ️ https://www.facebook.com/404 is taken by a user (username = 404) , I would say smart choice 🆒

How about twitter on mobile browser

https://mobile.twitter.com/404

How about Amazon https://www.amazon.com/404/

Screen shot of amazon.com 404 page — https://www.amazon.com/404/ ( ***Meet the dogs of Amazon*** — creative ! )

Fortune 500’s world #1 company Walmart

Screen shot of wallmart.com 404 page — https://www.walmart.com/404

Medium.com itself https://medium.com/404.html

Screen shot of medium.com 404 page — https://medium.com/404.html

There are more interesting ones below .But….

But before we go further, if you still don’t get it. I mean if you have one of these questions unanswered:

What is 404 again?
Why we should have a 404 page ?
What if I do not have a 404.html page on my server ?

…well no worries, here is a simple explanation , a completely non technical person can also understand.

If you know the context, understand 404.
By all means jump to the next image from famous company’s of the world and their 4️⃣ 0️⃣ 4️⃣ page

Let me start with stating this question :

Is there a real life example of “404“ other than on internet ?

Yes !

Consider you went to your favourite supermarket/grocery store to buy your favourite pasta 🍝.

So you know exactly which “aisle” has pasta and sometime exact “shelves” in that aisle.

However to your surprise it’s not present there, possibly because:

It’s out of stock.
It’s no more sold.
The ‘aisle’ for pasta is changed due to store redesign.
Or the ‘shelves’ are swapped by a new item, may be pasta sauce 😋

why the pasta is missing from its place ?

What if there was a note even a small one , explaining why the pasta is not there...

You would than not need to :

Go to billing counter and ask “ Where is my favourite pasta ?? ”
Wait or find for a staff to arrive and enquire about it.
Return back home ( last option) unhappy.

I guess that would have been a better experience.

Such as a small “text note” saying, its out of stock or it the aisle / shelve have been changed etc.

That small note is a 404 message.

That small note on the shelve stating “why the pasta is missing from its place ?” in technical for any website is 404 — “Page Not Found”

So google also has one as started during start of the article www.google.com/404

Here are few interesting websites with 404 pages.

Lets Start with some of the most visited and famous websites of 2021

How about some international entities such as :
World health org

Screen shot of who 404 page — https://www.who.int/404

— How about Government websites —

Gov of Australia

Screen shot of gov.au 404 page — https://www.australia.gov.au/404

Gov of USA

Screen shot of usa.gov 404 page — https://www.usa.gov/404

Gov of UK

Screen shot of gov.uk 404 page — www.gov.uk/404

Special case : How About NASA 🔭

Screen shot of nasa.gov 404 page — https://www.nasa.gov/404/

Lets see what is the UX from market leader in UI/UX of software products

Invision

Canva ( It’s a real puzzle and I even enjoyed solving it 🙂 )

Screen shot of canva.com 404 page — https://www.canva.com/404

Sketch (has animations )

Screen shot of sketch.com 404 page — https://www.sketch.com/404 (has animations)

Adobe

Figma

Idea !

Check out what does your company’s website or personal website shows

<www.company_name….>/404.html

I have one for my personal website as well, check it here

So by now, we know any (but not all) website’s such as www.google.com and www.walmart.com have a dedicated page on their website (server) named as 404.html dedicated for this purpose.

If a website does not have a 404.html, depending upon the website server, user may have experience very simple web pages such as this:

Apache Server’s official website itself : https://www.apache.org/404.html

Screen shot of apache.org 404 page — https://www.apache.org/404.html

If you don’t have one, you can build one very easily. You can search on internet a lot many articles or may be on medium.com.

Perhaps Google itself has this page with title : Create custom 404 pages

or get inspired by existing designs , ready to use , shared by community at codepen.io here