My 404 page is showing a 4xx error. How can that be fixed?

[sbetzen]

My actual 404 page is giving a 4xx error.
The page address is http://www.ecowindchimes.com/v/404.asp

It loads fine... it is the page all 404's are directed to. Why is it showing a 404 error. The page works.

How can this be fixed?

Stephen

[ditoroin]

I suppose that, the link path is incorrect in your web.config file

[MoosaHemani]

I agree you need to update your web.config file with the desired instructions!

[ThompsonPaul]

I think what you're seeing here is intentional behaviour, Stephen. It's Volusion's hack for working around the fact their system doesn't handle 404's "correctly".

Bottom line, when you see these, you still need to fix the issue with whatever URL was being sent to the 404 page, but don't worry that the 404 page itself seems to be "not found" according to its status code.

Here's an explanation for "why" this is happening, if you're interested:

Normally, when a user enters a URL that doesn't exist, the server sends back a 404 error header. In addition, the server's settings know that when sending back a 404 status because there's no such page, they should also show the server error page directly.

For a number of reasons, Volusion can't do this, so instead, they've instituted a catch-all redirect so visitors to non-existent pages get a 301-redirect to a regular website page that has been faked to look like a 404 page. Because that 404-looking page has been found and shown, it would normally have a 200 status, which means page found OK.

A little unorthodox, but OK so far as far as the user is concerned.

BUT! When a user hits a "page not found", the search engines want to get an actual 404 status error code back so they know not to index that non-existent URL. See the problem?

If the search engine gets a 200 response, it will assume that is the real page the visitor was trying to reach and will index the non-existent URL with the 404-ish looking content. Bad. So even though you - the user - can see the error page (200), Volusion has to give it a fake 404 status to give the search engines the correct information.

For a demonstration, go to this non-existent page http://www.cochranemusic.ca/oops You can see in your browser's URL bar that the page address is still http://www.cochranemusic.ca/oops even though the page itself shows the server error page content.

Now go to http://www.ecowindchimes.com/oops and notice that the URL in the address bar actually changes, because you've been forwarded to a page on your site called 404.asp. That's a real page on your website you're seeing that's been made to "look" like a server error page. Even though you've been redirected to a real (200) page, the server has to pretend it's a 404 status to mimic the correct behaviour.

Whew - that was confusing to try to explain, so let me know if it's still not clear.

Paul

P.S. To server admins: I know I've oversimplified the difference between a server's own 404 error page and an actual website page made to look like a 404. I do know the difference, but for the sake of keeping this explanation as straightforward as possible, I've glossed over it.