Steps to Create a Custom WordPress 404 Error Page

In this article, you will learn to create a custom error page for a “404 Requested page not found” error. The main reason for creating a custom error page is to inform the visitor that the website has received the request but the requested page isn’t available.

Steps to Create a Custom WordPress 404 Error Page

1. At first, login to your cPanel Account and from the Files section, select File Manager.
2. In File Manager, go to the directory – public_html.
3. On the top right corner, click the Settings icon and enable Show Hidden Files.
4. Right click the .htaccess file and click Edit.
5. You can create a new .htaccess file, if you can’t find one by clicking the +File icon on the top left corner.
6. Then add ErrorDocument 404 “Page not found” to the .htaccess file.

Steps to Set Up the Error Handlers via the .htaccess File

1. Login to your cPanel account and go to the “File Manager” under the Files section.
2. You will be redirected to File Manager Tool. Now go to the “public_html” directory.
3. At the top right side, click the Settings button, tick the Show hidden files option and save it.
4. Then right click on the .htaccess file to edit it. If you don’t have one, create a new .htaccess file with the “+File” option on the left side of the window.
5. You can simply add the line “ErrorDocument 404 “<H1>Page not found</H1>” to the .htaccess” file without quotes. The message can be edited as per your preference. In case you have written separate codes for 404 error then create a new file for that, inside the “public_html”. Then the code will be “ErrorDocument 404 /404.html”. In this code, the error handling file is named as 404.html.
6. Then click “Save Changes” to save. With this, your website is ready to handle the 404 errors.

To create a 404 error handling page is a good practice so that the visitors won’t see any strange errors on your website.