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Hello.

This might seem like a strange question to ask, but here goes:

Can eValid help me with Finding Custom 404 Pages?

Thanks

DWells wrote:Hello.

This might seem like a strange question to ask, but here goes:

Can eValid help me with Finding Custom 404 Pages?

Thanks

Thanks for the question, DWells.

Here is the problem...

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.

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.

The solution to this is...

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.


-- eValid Support