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404 page

Design the page visitors see when a link is broken.

On this page

When someone follows a broken link or mistypes an address, WordPress shows a "page not found" (404) page. A 404 page template replaces your theme's version with your own design: a friendly message, a search box and a few links back into the site, with your header and footer around it.

The Northwind Studio 404 page on the live site: a large 404, the title This room is still empty, a short message, a search box and a Back to home button
A 404 page template on the live site.

Design the 404 page

  1. Create the template

    Go to Urmi → Theme Builder → New template, choose 404 page and click Create and open editor. It applies to the 404 page once published; no other condition is needed.

  2. Add the content

    A clear heading, one or two sentences, a Search Form and a button back to the home page. Links to popular pages or a Loop Grid of your latest posts help visitors keep going.

  3. Publish

    Click Publish.

To check it, open any address on your site that does not exist, such as /this-page-does-not-exist/, or use Preview in the Theme Builder, which shows the template on a missing address. See Preview & manage templates.

Tips

  • Keep it short and helpful. Visitors want to find what they were looking for, not read about the error.
  • The page still sends the proper "not found" status to search engines, so broken addresses do not end up in search results.
  • The header and footer templates show on the 404 page like on any other page, unless you exclude it with the 404 page rule in their conditions.
Theme Builder overviewEvery template type. Archives & search resultsDesign the search results page too. Template conditionsThe 404 page rule. Preview & manage templatesPreview the 404 page before publishing.