Forest: Those were the same arguments I made for using them, added that that it might also be handy to incorperate the following conditions into the 404:
1: There is nothing related to their typo, so we return the normal looking 404. 2: There is 1 page that relates to their typo, so we automaticly redirect the user from the 404 page (not without returning the 404 first so that the status is kept), to the related page and puts a visible warning at the top of that page telling them they were redirected there because the url they used was bad and this page is related to what they seemed to be looking for. 3: There are multiple pages that are related to their typo, so we return the normal looking 404 with links to the related pages added in the body. 4: If they are registered users or have an active session, give them the option to use either the result of condition 3 or we redirect to the best match and put a warning at the top to the search page that shows the other pages that are related to their typo. Would the redirects be to much or would that still be acceptable? The ones against dynamic 404's have their opinions fueled by personal experiences visiting sites that get overly zealous using the abundance of space on 404 pages to put loads of ads and such. Imho, if you want to give your users the best experience on a website, you have to try and make the information you provide as easily findable as possible and even try to help users find information they are looking for if they don't use the normal search facilities you provide, as long as you don't screw with web standards (not returning the correct codes so that search engines go wild on your site), don't try to provide to much help, because that could make things cluttered and turn the attempt to be helpful into an annoyance and definably don't do funky stuff like placing banners, ads and redirects to external sites on your 404 pages. On Aug 16, 5:19 am, Malcolm Tredinnick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, 2007-08-15 at 23:12 -0400, Forest Bond wrote: > > Hi, > > > On Wed, Aug 15, 2007 at 08:04:20PM -0700, TheMaTrIx wrote: > > > Is it, in your opinions, "nice", "appropriate" and "correct", in other > > > words, ethical, for an internet site to setup 404 pages so that when > > > for instance: > > > >http://www.domain.com/banana/ > > > > that doesn't exist, gets called, the user gets a 404 page inline with > > > the sites main layout + a bunch of suggestions for pages that might > > > fit what the user was looking for, like there are pages relevant to > > > banana at > > > >http://www.domain.com/recipies/milkshakes/banana > > >http://www.domain.com/gallery/dancingbanana > > >http://www.domain.com/music/RotterdamTerrorCorps/bananenlied > > > > Kinda like automated search results appended to the 404's. > > > I've had this talk with co-workers before, too. My take on it is this: > > > * If you don't have what the user is looking for, you should return a 404 > > status > > code. > > * There's nothing wrong with including additional information in the HTTP > > response body that may help the user find what he's looking for. > > * If your 404 page is overly complicated, it may not be immediately obvious > > to > > the user that an "error" condition has occured. This can be confusing, > > and > > should probably be avoided. > > > Does that sound reasonable to other folks? > > Absolutely. I think they're very good recommendations. The last item is > sometimes overlooked, but it is important: make it clear that the > intended target was not found and you aren't actually showing them the > target page. But providing helpful information or a search box is just > being user-friendly. > > Regards, > Malcolm > > -- > If it walks out of your refrigerator, LET IT > GO!!http://www.pointy-stick.com/blog/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django users" group. To post to this group, send email to django-users@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-users?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
