Review of Easy 404

It's not often that I come across a piece of software that is totally unique, very useful, and bargain priced, but EasyClick404 is just such a product.

What is it? Well, it's a cool little script that will keep your website visitors from getting those pesky "page not found" 404 errors, and, if you like, it will notify you by email every time a site visitor or search engine spider fails to find a page.

The package comes with excellent documentation, and was a snap to install. You do need to know how to FTP files to your website and change file permissions, but most webmasters know how to do that. Other than that, installation and use is a snap.

If for some reason you don't know how to do the things necessary for installation, it is available for a very modest fee. The instructions that come with the package, however are excellent, and most people should be able to do the installation themselves.

Per the instructions, I edited a few lines in the program file, added a line to my .htaccess file on my website, and had this nifty script running in under half an hour. My second installation on a different website took all of maybe ten minutes, since by then I knew the routine.

I set mine up to redirect all undecipherable 404 errors to my home page on one site, and to my site map on another site. Another possibility would be to use a custom 404 page (instructions for this are included when you buy the script), or to redirect traffic to a duplicate site map. The choice is yours.

Why do I find this script so useful? Well, besides the fact I no longer lose human site visitors to 404 errors, I run a great many PPC ad campaigns, and my sites are in a constant state of evolution. Page names change, and pages move around once in a while.

If I were to forget to change the URL on one of my ads to correspond to the new page name or location, I'd risk paying for clicks that went nowhere but a 404 page. I've also found it useful for tracking down dead links, or mis-typed URLs on my own pages (yes, I do that sometimes!).

You might think that 404 errors are rare. Check your site logs ... you'll be amazed, as I was.

They happen all the time, on nearly every site. People mis-type the URL or file type. Affiliates or link partners mis-type your link. You forget that you changed a page name or location. These are just a few of the reasons I can think of for errors.

Does this script catch and correctly redirect every single error? Yes and no. Incorrect file types, and certain types of common misspellings do get caught and sent to the correct page. If the script can't figure out where to send your visitor, it sends them to the default page you've specified.

Some web hosts allow custom 404 pages to perform the latter task, but none that I know of has a script that can decipher a misspelled page name or correct a file type error, and they don't send me an email to tell me about it, either!

One more real world example convinced me of the usefulness of this tool. Just the other day, I re-worked some pages on one of my sites. In my haste to get the pages up and indexed, I mis-typed one of the page names on my site map, and never noticed the error. The next day, EasyClick404 notified me that a search engine bot could not find the page in question.

Sure enough, a quick check of my site map and the file name tracked down the problem for me, and I had it solved in a few minutes. Absent EasyClick404, who knows how long it would have been until I discovered the error. I do use a spidering utility to check my sites for broken links from time to time, so eventually I would have caught the error, but it could have been weeks before I did. No more!

The bottom line? This is an easily implemented solution to a common problem, the script comes with good documentation, and is, as far as I know, totally unique. While I haven't needed any support with it, I own another piece of software by the same developer, and I know from first hand experience that he is extremely responsive and diligent when you email him a support request.

Learn more about EasyClick404 here.