> 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.
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