> Finding Custom 404 Pages

  BACKGROUND

  Checking for broken links in a webpage usually produces a "page
  cannot be displayed" error, or better known as the 404 page.

  With most websites today, trying to be conformant to the style of
  their website, have their webmasters replace these generic "404"
  pages with custom pages that inform the user of the invalid link
  or page.

  These pages in turn, are not "technically" broken since pages are
  still being delivered by the server.

  In a technical sense, such pages are not really broken because at
  the HTTP level a page was returned to the browser. But they are
  "broken" because they point out the page that that was requested
  was not available.  Try <http://www.sr-corp.com/bogus.html> and note
  the response.  The server even filled in the name of the non-
  existent page that it wasn't able to find for you.

  SOLUTION

  How to you find pages on your site that are custom-programmed to
  give you better feedback than a rude "404 Error" message?

  To make sure that eValid does not "miss" these pages follow the
  instructions in configuring the eValid Site Analysis engine to
  detect these pages.

  (1) Navigate to the Site where the user will be performing the
      Site Analysis for broken links.

  (2) Check the custom 404 page that is returned by the websites
      server by intentionally navigating to a bad or invalid URL.

  (3) Note the message in the custom 404 page.

  (4) Open the eValid Site Analysis preferences by clicking on
      "Settings > Site Analysis Filters".

  (5) Select the "Create Reports for Broken or unavailable pages"
      option under the "General Filters" section.

  (6) Select the "Create Reports for Pages Matching String Search
      Criteria" and input a fragment of the message displayed in the
      custom 404 page for eValid to search for.

  (7) Select the "Complete HTML" option for eValid to search for the
      error message fragment within the HTML source of the pages
      being mapped.

  (8) Click on the "Save" button to save the changes made to the
      registry or, save the changes as a profile to search for
      broken links.

  (9) Run the Site Analysis for the website.

  eValid should now be able to detect normal or custom 404 error
  pages within the website during a Site Analysis.