Redirecting Error Pages

This page describes how to customise the error messages that appear when someone follows a link to a page that does not exist, as well as other common errors. By dropping a file called .htaccess in the root directory as shown in the example, every time one of these error pages is called, a page of your creation will be shown instead.

.htaccess:
AuthName 2020MEDIA
AuthType Basic
errordocument 404 /errors/err404.html
errordocument 500 /errors/err500.html

And so on for other pages. Click here for a full list of error pages. In the example above, the error pages would be found in a directory called 'errors', but it is up to you to call them whatever you want.
The .htaccess file is a plain text file, without any extension like .txt or .doc. It must be uploaded as ASCI - this is the default for most FTP programmes. Upload the file into the root directory ( also called the 'home' directory) and then attempt to view a page you know doesn't exist. You should get the page you created instead of the usual 'HTTP 404 Page does not exist' page. Once on the server its likely you won't be able to see the .htaccess file as it is a hidden file. You could rename the .htaccess.txt for editing purposes and then back to just .htaccess to enable them.

For further information consult any of the many books on Apache Web server, or see http://www.apache.org.

Final Tip:
See also Password Protecting Pages for more on htaccess.