105 Weird and Wonderful 404 Error Pages
404 error pages are important. In fact, for some visitors, they are the most important pages on your site.
When someone lands on a 404 error page, there is only one of two things they can do. They can either give your site ANOTHER shot. Or they can just back out and disappear. Most just disappear.
But a good 404 page just might convince them to stick around.
If you have a run-of-the-mill 404 page, then you can pretty much forget about it. But if you have a creative 404 page, then there’s a possibility you might just get your increasingly frustrated visitor to stop for a moment and say, “What’s this?”
If nothing else, the creativity of the following 404 pages should get a visitor’s attention. Perhaps these examples will offer a little inspiration. If you can couple a little creativity with a 404 page that can actually help your visitors find what they’re looking for, then you up your chances of turning a frustrated visitor into a happy surfer.
Editor’s Note: Some of the sites listed below have moved, changed, or no longer exist. We’ve decided to leave them here unlinked instead of removing them (and losing a bunch of weird and wonderful 404 page examples that might inspire you). Also, some sites may have changed the design of their 404 page since we published this article. To view the site’s current 404 page, just type a non-existent address after the URL (e.g. domain.tld/asdfasdf
“).
In alphabetical order …
3. Afeedapart
5. AmCharts (animated)
7. Apadeloup
9. Bdsm-Berlin
10. Bellaminettes
11. BlackMoonDev
13. BlueDaniel (animated)
14. CarolRivello
15. Carsonified
17. CentreSource
20. Chi.mp
26. DDZ
27. DeliciouslyCreative
34. Forrst
35. FromMyBottomStep
36. FryeWiles
37. FutureOfWebDesign
38. Gdzl.la (animated)
48. iFolderLinks
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54. Kochatelier-Berlin
57. LeapAnywhere
58. LightPostCreative
60. Livadaru
62. LookItsMe (animated)
63. Lumino.us
67. MergeWeb
72. Nosh (includes YouTube video)
74. ObjectAdjective
82. RetardZone
85. ShelfWorthy
93. TheWebMotel
94. Tinsanity (animated with VERY annoying sound)
98. Unitinteractive
>> Do you have any favorites?
Photo: Woman Frustrated with her Computer from Bigstock. Some sources used for this post: blogmarks, smashingmagazine, hongkiat, patterntap.