So which plugins were you having trouble with? A link is worth … well, a lot!
Normally the 404 is handled by the 404.php file in the theme folder. A good place to look and learn is at the twentyten theme that comes with WP 3+. If your theme doesn’t supply a 404.php file then WP has a pretty reasonable default.
It is a Bad Idea to have a 404 (Page Not Found) result in a valid page (200 OK) because it can mess up your search engine ranking (and any other program that might be looking at your site). The WP default a) gives a true 404 error, b) a search box, and c) your theme with all of its nav. That’s enough for almost any user who is likely to use your site.
Well, this is what my theme does now:
http://adriannemiller.com/author/adrianne/
I was hoping for something that would allow me to redirect all missing pages to my home page.
Right. That’s the default handling for a 404 – inside your theme. Automatically redirecting 404s to your front page can actually be confusing for people. They click on The Best Roast Chicken Ever! and they get … the front page? If they get a 404 page they will know it was a bad link and deal with it.
It’s better to make sure you don’t have any 404s to begin with. There are many site checkers out there, but I’ve always liked Xenu Link Checker for it’s speed and simplicity. It has the same site credentials as MSIE, so make sure you fire up IE and logout before running it or it will wander into the admin Dashboard … which could be Bad.
Ps. Although you may really like it, most people do not like web pages that force them to listen to music … over, and over, and over again. It slows down the page load (not a Good Thing) and it gets old really fast. No offense intended, but this one is pretty much chiseled into stone for the Dos and Don’ts of website design.
Thanks! You’ve been helpful.
Now I see that I don’t really need a plugin after all.
