Sonicsoft Wired: Month Special: 404

Ever heard of a 404 page? It's a page that is displayed by a website, or the web browser, to inform the user the page he or she is trying to access does not exists. It's not a good sight, but these website make 404 pages the destination page for a few

Cool Pages We Haven't Found

Stereotyped as the 'Page cannot be displayed' page in Internet Explorer, 404 (or four oh four) pages is the page displayed by a website telling the user the requested page is not available.

Possible reasons could be the page has been moved to another location, or the page does not exist, or the user have typed the website address wrong. In any cases, a 404 page shows up if the web server can't access the required page.

It's sometimes dreadful to find yourself on a 404 page. There is no usable content, and more often than not, the only way to go back is pressing the Back button on your browser. Not only that, some web servers are placing ads on their 404 pages, making it impossible to discern you've reached a non-working page.

Still, some websites make their 404 pages cool and imaginative. They include fancy graphics, unique ideas, and even poetry to convey to the users they have reached a bad link. Not only that, they also provide a link to the home page, sometimes a search feature, and even an option to report the bad link, so you're not left lost.

Anyway, here are some of the fun 404 pages we haven't found (since technically, the web page is supposedly not existing):

Do Whatever You Need to Do. These characters are talking about 404 errors and are hilarious!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/systemisdown.html

While you're lost... you must die!
http://www.f23.com/404.shtml

Be poetic. Lumino.us gives you three haikus, and beer!
http://lumino.us/404

Another Haiku. Informative, but a direct link back to the homepage would be useful.
http://www.jackfig.com/404

Road Not Found.
http://iamww.com/404

The Blue Screen of Web Death. Yep, it's still here. BSOWD.
http://www.galiacho.es/404

Be sincere. He seems to be very sorry for the missing page...
http://jeremyfuksa.com/404

Don' Count up to 404. The page already did it for you.
http://www.porcupine.gr/404

Poetic again. A small poem about the 404 error.
http://www.poemofquotes.com/404

Unusual Solutions. Shocking visitors with colors - interesting, but not quite appealing
http://www.palmflying.com/404

Tell Them What Happened. A nifty flowchart of what happened
http://www.nextwaveperformance.com/404

Lost? Nowhere to go?
http://www.martinkorner.co.uk/404df

Robots. Computers. Jamie Huskisson communicates with “lost” visitors using imagery
http://www.jhuskisson.com/404

Good design. A really dirty, hand-made image with a comment - for despaired visitors only. The page also includes a search box.
http://www.ateaseweb.com/404/

Emergency Test! Apparently, this is a test of the emergency broadcast systems. You should remain calm, these kinds of things happen all the time. The “four oh four error” by Poropoptrt.com.
http://www.pyropoptrt.com/404

What Can be Done? This site offers some suggestions
http://www.psyked.co.uk/404

Clean and simple. BlueVertigo offers a poem with horizontal scrolling
http://bluevertigo.com.ar/404