February 12, 2008

New Google Toolbar Beta Hijacks 404 Pages?

Duncan Riley

101 comments »

According to reports at DigitalPoint forums, the latest beta release of Google Toolbar hijacks 404 pages as shown in the image above.

It’s not clear from the reports as to whether this occurs only when no customized 404 page is available on a specific site, or with every 404 page. I also can’t test the theory, least the only beta version of Google Toolbar I could find was for Internet Explorer.

The Google 404 page offers some hints as to what a user could do next, and also provides a Google search box.

If true (and there’s pages of people saying that it is), Google being helpful (which I’m guessing will be their justification) really goes against their do no evil mantra once again. For 404 pages to be hijacked in this way, be it in all cases or only some, removes the rights of the webmaster to decide what a user sees when visiting all parts of their website, and that’s something many will find wrong.

(via Chris Garrett, image credit SEOker)

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Comments

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FireflySEO

February 12th, 2008 at 3:10 am

Thats bloody awful. They shouldn’t capitalise on things like that. Leave peoples 404 pages alone google!!!
Mark

February 12th, 2008 at 3:16 am

Hahaha… “the rights of the webmaster to decide what a user sees when visiting all parts of their website”….. hahahahahahaha….
Duncan Riley

February 12th, 2008 at 3:19 am

Mark
I don’t see anything funny about that. If I design and host a site, that site should display pages as I deem fit, not Google, and that includes 404’s.
Alper

February 12th, 2008 at 3:20 am

If it’s only the case when a webmasters has not defined a custom 404 page, I see this as a great addition to the online user experience.
Most sites are bloody awful and links rot over time, helping people find what they were looking for is not doing evil.

Get off the Google-bashing bandwagon already.
Technicle

February 12th, 2008 at 3:29 am

Fine.
Mark

February 12th, 2008 at 3:32 am

I agree with you in principle, Duncan. I just feel that webmasters have never had any particularly great “right” to decide what the user sees when visiting their websites. More importantly, the rights of the user should always supersede those of the webmaster, don’t they? I mean, the user is installing the toolbar, after all.

But I certainly agree with your viewpoint as it specifically applies to the Google Toolbar. It seems like this functionality should perhaps be separate from the other functions of the toolbar, especially for any users who may use Google for, e.g., their web history.
Mark

February 12th, 2008 at 3:33 am

Ack… English… not so good… I meant “shouldn’t they?” I suppose.
Tim Cinel

February 12th, 2008 at 3:34 am

I think it’s OK as long as no 404 page is sent, which is almost NEVER. As useful as it may be it many cases, it’s important to have control of your website. Besides, good webmasters often make helpful (and sometimes funny) 404 pages.
ionix5891

February 12th, 2008 at 3:52 am

If they seriously go ahead with this

i will turn off 404 headers and send http 200 instead

google are f****** desparate! they are over riding my sites design for their own profit

no way in hell

GOOGLE ARE EVIL!
Darren Stuart

February 12th, 2008 at 3:52 am

This nothing new there were annoying spyware apps that used to do this on IE.
Danny

February 12th, 2008 at 3:59 am

>This nothing new there were annoying spyware apps that used to do this on IE.

Uh, that’s the point, this is spyware behavior. The difference is spyware companies don’t have a team of apologists ready to justify anything they do.
Brian

February 12th, 2008 at 4:02 am

I used Internet Explorer and this is definitely true. It seems to do it when the page is not found or when a URL is entered incorrectly. Never really thought about it, but if you are a site, that you have an automatic redirect for all 404 instances, then you could be missing out on a significant amount of uniques visitors and pageviews which all equates to monetization. Ouch!
Zmax

February 12th, 2008 at 4:08 am

http://www.customizegoogle.com
Ignacio

February 12th, 2008 at 4:09 am

If webmasters want to control what the user sees on a broken link they should send a 200 response with a webpage stating the error, not a 404. So even if the toolbar displayed this page on custom 404 pages I wouldn’t think its all that wrong.

But if you googled a bit you could see that:

“When a site displays a custom error page the Toolbar will no longer provide suggestions for that site.”

http://googlewebmastercentral......tures.html
taylor

February 12th, 2008 at 4:11 am

98.73% of webmasters’ suggestions will not be as useful as a google search box - wait… 99.99% i mean.
Craig

February 12th, 2008 at 4:18 am

> If webmasters want to control what the user sees on a broken link they should send a 200 response with a webpage stating the error, not a 404.

But if a 404 error is returned when a crawler visits that page it probably won’t try it again, whereas with a 200 it will.
Max

February 12th, 2008 at 4:24 am

So there, nothing to see here, move along. It’s only in those cases where there’s no “real” 404 page, and in those cases, this display is way more helpful than the default 404 that IE displays — which also isn’t the server 404 message.

Does this also work when an entire domain goes missing?
Max

February 12th, 2008 at 4:32 am

Oh, and what Craig says. If some URL doesn’t correspond to a page (actually, to any resource), you send a 404. That’s what 404’s are for. 200 means “I found it!”, 404 means “I didn’t”. Dressing up the “I didn’t” (by site owners) to be more helpful still doesn’t make it a “I found it!” case.

Breaking the specs because you dislike some non-existant behaviour by a third-party toolbar to a third-grade browser is silly knee-jerk behaviour. Should I also stop sending valid HTML code because IE borks it?
Martin Porcheron

February 12th, 2008 at 4:36 am

<>

It’s on the Beta Google toolbar and is not enabled by default (it’s the “Find by Name” option). And it only replaces default error pages, as in, one’s a webmaster has not customised.

Not really that serious when you think about it.
Martin Porcheron

February 12th, 2008 at 4:38 am

> If webmasters want to control what the user sees on a broken link they should send a 200 response with a webpage stating the error, not a 404.

No, that’s a stupid idea - which is very similar as to why IE has such poor standards.
Sam

February 12th, 2008 at 4:49 am

It’s definitely a better user experience to have something pulled up for a 404 page than nothing at all, but I still question whether the design of that page is the right one to have, especially from a branding point of view. So a link is broken… what does Google have to do with that? Why is their brand plastered all over this page?

For novice internet browsers who don’t understand the intricacies of 404 pages (unlike all of the comment authors here), I think this page will cause as many points of confusion as it does help people get unblocked.

I agree that the direction is right, but if I were Google, I wouldn’t be so anxious to put my brand *all over* this page… it seems like that could backfire with the Google Tooolbar audience.
Nagaraj Hubli

February 12th, 2008 at 4:50 am

I went ahead and tested it.. it shows the google’s 404 error page only if the application doesn’t have its customized 404 error page.. if the application has a customized 404 error page… then it promptly shows the one designed by the web site administrator
Danny Sullivan

February 12th, 2008 at 4:53 am

Internet Explorer operated this way from so far way back, it’s not even funny. If you put out a very short 404 — one that is clearly not customized — it would provide suggestions on how to find what you’re looking for. But if you did put out a custom page (more than 512 bytes, I think — just like Google), it wouldn’t do that.

It was hard to argue that this didn’t make sense. If you were a site owner that actually cared about visitors not finding what they wanted on your site, a custom 404 is easy to do and overrode whatever IE did. But if you failed your users, then having the browser kick in is nice for them.
mrshl

February 12th, 2008 at 5:00 am

Every time it’s one of DR’s sensationalist “_____ is evil” posts I move straight to the comments and find out “oh, there’s no real problem here at all.” Which Duncan would have found out himself had he imitated one of his readers and tested his claim.

“Hijacked?” Uh, okay.
Ed

February 12th, 2008 at 5:02 am

Duncan: If you would just use Boot Camp you wouldn’t have to write something as “I also cant [sic] test the theory” in every other piece you write. Just a thought.
RealBusiness

February 12th, 2008 at 5:09 am

This is so wrong. Damn Google.
Jason Nelms

February 12th, 2008 at 5:11 am

In IE, you can turn on custom 404 redirects locally on the machine. Dell has been doing it on new computers by default. The user can turn it off. I work in IT and have had to go turn it off on several machines. It causes some problems such as going to the local 404 page on sites that are working. Budget vehicle rental is one that I remember for sure.
Scott Matthews (Bitty Browser)

February 12th, 2008 at 5:11 am

Duncan: how do you feel about browser plug-ins that remove ads from sites?

-Scott
Chip Monk

February 12th, 2008 at 5:16 am

I read the comments here and I only see webmaster’s opinions, not web searchers opinions. I think if webmasters want users to find good content don’t put a 404 page there, put the content the user expected to find. If you can’t do that you are doing a disservice to your visitors while Google is performing a useful service. Don’t trash Google for being a bigger help than you, instead be grateful and thank them.
reborn_25

February 12th, 2008 at 5:21 am

I don’t understand… why is it like that?
Danny Levine

February 12th, 2008 at 5:31 am

As long as it does not show if the site/application has a specific 404 page, I think it actually adds some value to the user. What is the alternative???

——————————
See my comment log: SignMyContent_kOEMjb5J79rZxFGtt6mU_SMCEND
mobilekick.com

February 12th, 2008 at 5:35 am

if you don’t like it don’t install the awesome google toolbar…

Google is not evil, Microsoft does it anyway w/ their browser. And Charter cable does it to their subscribers and all other isps will and all domains will be registered and there will be no more 404 pages…

Who cares about 404 pages? Are you going to miss them? Is it that hard to tell what webpage you are looking at? Would you somehow be confused if you saw a google search bar if the page you tried to view did not exist? How would this hinder your experience in any way???
I Love RSS feeds

February 12th, 2008 at 5:37 am

Could this lead to a new variant of typosquatting through Google?

Since misspelled requests generate predictable search queries I suspect it would be possible to target these through Google…
Bhangu

February 12th, 2008 at 5:43 am

Hmm, that feature is pretty cool actually.. if i mistype a domain name it shows me the right domain name and i can easily browse to it…

I think more than being evil, they have helped users to save some time…
Craig

February 12th, 2008 at 5:48 am

> I think if webmasters want users to find good content don’t put a 404 page there, put the content the user expected to find.

Even if every internal link on the site is valid it still doesn’t help the situation where the user has followed a link from an external site which leads to a non-existent page.
Rick

February 12th, 2008 at 5:54 am

Everyone calm down and buy some GOOG stock. Then you’ll stop complaining about it.
OMG, they are hijacking the 404 page!!!!
Everyone protest!!
Allen

February 12th, 2008 at 6:01 am

Quite frankly, who cares. If you don’t like it, uninstall the toolbar. And for the rest of you “webmasters”, if people are getting 404’s you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Average users probably like seeing a more friendly page than the ones served by websites that haven’t addressed how to handle 404’s.
Diego

February 12th, 2008 at 6:09 am

Has anyone tested if this only happens with default 404 pages somehow?
Arun

February 12th, 2008 at 6:10 am

I think they have overwritten IE’s page not found file.
Diego

February 12th, 2008 at 6:11 am

Yes someone has! Quoting:
——————————————–
# Nagaraj Hubli

February 12th, 2008 at 4:50 am

I went ahead and tested it.. it shows the google’s 404 error page only if the application doesn’t have its customized 404 error page.. if the application has a customized 404 error page… then it promptly shows the one designed by the web site administrator

——————————————–

Please update your blog entry or else this is just FUD.
Andy

February 12th, 2008 at 6:14 am

So, we’ve established that it doesn’t intercept 404 results with custom pages - that’s good.

I’m going to assume that it won’t intercept XmlHttpRequests that return 404 without a page, otherwise it will have broken every RESTful AJAX application out there.

So far, nothing to worry about - it’s just chaged IE’s default 404 page. I’m cool with that.
ripple024

February 12th, 2008 at 6:22 am

i’m tired of people getting pussyhurt over google. i would much rather have this 404 page than something that serves no purpose whatsoever.
ceejayoz

February 12th, 2008 at 6:42 am

“If webmasters want to control what the user sees on a broken link they should send a 200 response with a webpage stating the error, not a 404.”

Absolutely freaking not.

That’s about the best idea to absolutely ruin everyone’s search experience I’ve heard lately.
TH

February 12th, 2008 at 6:45 am

If your website’s monetization or user experience control hinges on how 404’s are displayed, you probably have bigger problems to worry about than a google toolbar function.
Matt

February 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am

A work around would be to have a custom 404 page that returns a HTTP code of 200. The content being page not found - i believe this is quite common. And being a Load Tester a bloody irritation (<- that’s a wry smile!!)

Still rather that than the makers of my browser or plug in high jacking things.
Ben Beltran

February 12th, 2008 at 6:49 am

So can you explain me what about “Providing information the webmaster neglected to in the case of an error” is evil?

FUD, in my TechCrunch?
NotABug

February 12th, 2008 at 6:50 am

YAHOO! toolbars do something worse (or at Least Dealio’s toolbar in association with Yahoo!)

Yahoo! toolbars do something even more annoying, when you open a new blank tab, its not blank, it suggests Yahoo search terms.

I guess if yahoo doesn’t nobody notices and calls them evil.
Sean

February 12th, 2008 at 6:55 am

Whatever. 404 pages are pretty useless on most sites anyways. No one wants to see one. I don’t see this as a bad thing.
Mike

February 12th, 2008 at 6:56 am

Cmon, it’s better than a non-customised left as is IE 404 page.

So how long before Google start selling product off the back of this? Incoming keywords, 404 page with ads on it…

Who cares. Really?
Chris

February 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am

The notion of one hijacking something that doesn’t exist is absurd.
Asbjørn Ulsberg

February 12th, 2008 at 7:03 am

I don’t see this as an awfully bad solution, but I agree that web site authors should have full control over their own error pages, including 404’s. What I wonder, then, is how Google is able to know the difference between a custom 404 and a generic one. Will it come stocked with samples of Apache’s and IIS’ default 404 pages and match the returned 404 page with them? How else will it be able to know the difference?

It’s not like there’s anything inherently different from a general web server-generated 404 and a custom one. A custom 404 can even be based on a general one, where only portions of the text has been replaced or CSS has been added to make it match better with the rest of the site’s overall design.

If Google manages to replace all generic 404 pages with their own custom one, I’d just say good for them and their users. Google Toolbar is free and an explicit choice (although often a very subtle one) to have, so I don’t think this is bad. If they hijack all 404’s, though, this is pretty annoying.
Dito

February 12th, 2008 at 7:05 am

It’s a good idea. Google will capitalize from this idea, but it also happens to provide a value to users. I have no problem with it since it doesn’t mess with my custom 404 page.
Kilian

February 12th, 2008 at 7:08 am

so why does’nt google use that page for their own 404s?
David

February 12th, 2008 at 7:10 am

On my site you can find all kinds of information about this.
mathias

February 12th, 2008 at 7:54 am

Duncan

Just ignore all these Google employees posting a defense of their toolbar and trying to bash you.

I work in the toolbar industry and I can tell you that users HATE behavior like this. Google will learn that soon enough. 404 and DNS hijacking are the two mots retarded things a toolbar maker can do.
the Patrician

February 12th, 2008 at 7:58 am

The problem this creates is that on my custom 404 page I have included the directory to my site so they can click the link to where they were wanting to go and can still find MY site.

It doesn’t matter that I have a properly configured and helpful 404 page, this diverts all the broken link errors or typo errors to the Google 404 and that friends is where it is thieving traffic for itself!
Niraj

February 12th, 2008 at 8:04 am

It really is pretty irresponsible to post such a story when it would be really easy to test it and see whether it is the case or not. As many have mentioned it’s a non-issue because it’s not overriding custom 404 pages. Why are you not able to do some simple research, or even enlist someone else to check for you? I guess there’s a lot of value in sensationalist headlines without basis.
Matt Cutts

February 12th, 2008 at 8:13 am

This is not new at all. We wrote about this specific issue on the Google webmaster blog a couple months ago to let people know about it
http://googlewebmastercentral......tures.html
Jaso

February 12th, 2008 at 8:16 am

So your telling me you wrote this story without even varifying it yourself? Come on.. get over to a PC with Internet Explorer and test the beta toolbar yourself.

WOW..Google is really looking for any new avenue to push its search. This could be an interesting battle ground. What stops Microsoft from disabling this in future IE versions?
Alexander

February 12th, 2008 at 8:17 am

There’s a Firefox plugin that does _just_ custom error page interception called
ErrorZilla

I have it, and use it frequently. Upon receiving a 404 it displays a page with links to retry the request, check for a coral cache version, check the GOOG cache version, check the Wayback machine version, run ping against the site, run a traceroute to the site, and finally to check the whois info on the site.

IIRC the whois link is currently broken. The other options are all useful.

If a user wants to override the default 404 page, what’s the problem? If a publisher wants to create tools to help a user do that, like GOOG is, what’s the problem?

The only people who should be upset about this are link pharmers that host hundreds of pr0n ads on their 404 pages… Duncan… *cough*
Marzipan from Toledo

February 12th, 2008 at 8:19 am

Dear Most TechCrunch Readers:

This is a blog. They don’t have an obligation to you to fact check every little thing. If that’s what you want go read businessweek or something.

They throw things out there and people comment on them, and together the story is formed and massaged.

As a result and unofficially on behalf of Duncan, goF yourself.
Gustavo

February 12th, 2008 at 8:31 am

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!
dave

February 12th, 2008 at 8:32 am

in an effort to “report it first” you have once again proven that you are in no way, shape or form anything even remotely similar to a real journalist or reporter…at least pick up a phone, or wait for an email reply from a source or something - anything - before wasting time with this shit…every wordpress and drupal install has a default and custom 404 page - why didn’t you personally just install and try it out on some random sites? duh.
Matt Cutts

February 12th, 2008 at 8:36 am

And from the blog post, because some people won’t bother to read it:

“404 errors with default error pages
When a visitor tries to reach your content with an invalid URL and your server returns a short, default error message (less than 512 bytes), the Toolbar will suggest an alternate URL to the visitor. If this is a general problem in your website, you will see these URLs also listed in the crawl errors section of your Webmaster Tools account.

If you choose to set up a custom error page, make sure it returns result code 404. The content of the 404 page can help your visitors to understand that they tried to reach a missing page and provides suggestions regarding how to find the content they were looking for. When a site displays a custom error page the Toolbar will no longer provide suggestions for that site. You can check the behavior of the Toolbar by visiting an invalid URL on your site with the Google Toolbar installed.”
Stephen

February 12th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Verisign 404 Revisited?

Another reason to ensure that be it IE, FF, Opera, Safari you simply DO NOT install any Google, Yahoo or Microsoft Toolbars.
Mike

February 12th, 2008 at 10:19 am

This article really shows that you have no idea what you are talking about. Your *browser* does this 9 times out of 10 when all the site returns is a 404 code. Google Toolbar is just making the information more useful. If you’re a webmaster and you want a custom 404 page, then send it, and it will be displayed. Thanks for the ignorant FUD.
Jack Morrisey

February 12th, 2008 at 10:22 am

To me, the ‘Google 404′ is a function of their software. A user installed that software. Good, bad or otherwise, a user wanted to be the tool, err, use that tool. You get with it what comes with it. I’m sure if you uninstall the toolbar, 404’s will be fine again…
Frederic

February 12th, 2008 at 10:22 am

Sorry guys - but shouldn’t somebody at TechCrunch actually check this stuff before reporting it?

Here is a rumor and I can’t test it doesn’t exactly exemplify great journalism. It’s not like checking it would have been that hard…
AW

February 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am

Duncan, I know you like posting extremely provocative stuff without fact-checking it, what EVER, but the *VERY* least you could do is update the original post with more information as it comes in. It’s been… how many hours now?

Christ, without that you’re like the Fox News of the web-blogging.

Seriously man, don’t be Fox News. Fox News shouldn’t be Fox News.
rubu

February 12th, 2008 at 11:42 am

The content of the 404 page can help your visitors to understand that they tried to reach a missing page and provides suggestions regarding how to find the content they were looking for.
Matt Cutts

February 12th, 2008 at 11:53 am

I did a quick post to walk through how this feature works, with screenshots:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/.....e-toolbar/

But the short answer is that customized 404 pages (> 512 bytes) aren’t changed (as others on the thread have pointed out).
Bhangu

February 12th, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Hi,

I think you got it wrong here.

I have a website, where i use 404 error page, to have SEO friendly url’s and Google toolbar does not give any error or we can say does not hijack it.

The 404 request is first handled by the Webserver, so if webmaster wants to handle 404 pages in some way he can do it without bothering about Google Toolbar.

If in case the 404 bad request is not handles by Webserver (Webmaster) then it’s gonna show that 404 page in IE anyways, and its always good to have a clean error message with some suggestions rathar then simple 404 page not found kind of thing.

In case it’s still unclear, a webmaster can add the following line in .htaccess file

ErrorDocument 404 /redirect.php

to redirect any 404 page (missing page on the host) to redirect.php page.

So there is nothing to worry and webmasters won’t have any knock on affect of this thing.
Saim Baig

February 12th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Shows you the power of google.Even error pages are being hijacked.If this happens on customized pages as well.Then this must be a interference.
Vincent Clement

February 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

Duncan,

The only thing that is hijacked is the 404 page that IE displays. If you have a custom 404 page that is greater than 512 bytes, it will be displayed.

Come on, admit your error and move on.
Tech4um.com Technology Forum

February 12th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

At the end of the day, Google is a for-profit company wanting to make money like everyone else. Microsoft used to have the image Google has now as the angels of the industry. Sooner or later, Google will be no different.

–

Tech4um.com - Technology Forum for Anything and Everything Tech Related - MP3 Players, Video Games, Computers, Phones etc
ian holsman

February 12th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

I’m guessing it won’t be long before the virus scanners treat the google toolbar as a virus
Bilal Farooqui

February 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

This is pretty much as bad as DNS hijacking [that verisign did a few yrs ago, and more recently ISPs like earthlink started doing]. I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about this, this really sucks. Perhaps Google is finally employing “suits” as prod managers, not “geeks”, no self-respecting geek would hijack a 404 page.
yaph

February 12th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Where are the GoogleAds on the screenshot or is this still to come?
Ayush

February 12th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

This is for your own good people. Google does no evil and they know better than you do in any case.
Jon Deutsch

February 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

I think Google is aiding in usability and capitalizing on it. Good for friggin’ them. No average user should be bothered with error messages, and if Google can plug that usability hole with some value, then I say, take the revenue and run.

There’s no excuse to expose technology failures to the masses. The masses should not have to worry about what a 404 error is, and they should never realize that they have a bad URL. The “web” (Google-powered, or whoever) should be assisting people and helping them find what they need to find. Errors are failures, and users should be sheltered from failures. As architects of the web, that’s part of our responsibility.

Simple. Elegant. Usable.

Jon

Like my philosophy? Hire me as your user experience maverick: emailme@myself.com. Good rates, tremendous value.
Zubin

February 12th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

This post has some clarifications:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/.....e-toolbar/
Eric

February 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

This would be awfully wrong. But hey, why does Google care? More FREE advertising! (at the expense of hijacked webmasters) Man, they take every chance they can get to shamefully promote their brand image.
art

February 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Why are there uninformed comments still? For the umpteenth time, custom 404s aren’t replaced.

Secondly, I’m disappointed in the original poster for not even testing it out, although you really seemed to imply the general practice was unsavory.

Which leads me to my final point of this functionality being super useful over regular unuseful 404s.

But hey, you got a lot of traffic right? I guess that was the case. Misinform people and stand back.
amy fisher tape

February 12th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

google can use this data and register a sh#$tload of domains and make all the arbitrage money themselves.
Cat Chen

February 13th, 2008 at 1:08 am

For the first time I saw this, I was clicking on a Google search result item, so I thought it just meant to tell you that the result link was broken. But then I saw it even if I type in an address directly, and I thought I might call it a hijacking.
Anonymous

February 13th, 2008 at 5:44 am

Welcome to Techcrunch the new anti-google propaganda machine sponsored by M$
Vixen Lee

February 16th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Come on peoples. Internet Explorer replaces the default 404 error page, too, but I don’t see you complaining. And Google replaces it with more helpful hints! o.O
the Patrician

February 16th, 2008 at 7:47 pm

I would like to send a “raspberry” to everyone who complained about this webmaster starting the dialog about this problem/nonproblem.

It was here that I discovered that I needed to up the size of my custom 404 to greater than 512 bytes. Since I did, this is no longer a problem.

I am sure it never was a problem for you mere surfers.

It was a problem for webmasters and I thank techcrunch for supplying me with a solution!
FreeBee

February 19th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

I don’t see how it could be a problem for webmasters either… If someone can’t be bothered to spend more than .5kB on their custom 404-page (really, 512 bytes is NOTHING, after all), which people are going to see whenever ANYTHING goes wrong, then such a person isn’t even worth the TITLE of webmaster. At least Google then offers the user some solutions.

They should be honored for that!
webgoddess

February 19th, 2008 at 4:40 pm

Not only does google hijack 404 pages, but if you have an iframe within your page and the page that is pulled into that iframe results in a 404, even if the page that contains the iframe is working properly, google hijacks the ENTIRE page with their custom 404. unbelievably lame!
lory

February 21st, 2008 at 6:49 pm

here’s no excuse to expose technology failures to the masses. The masses should not have to worry about what a 404 error is, and they should never realize that they have a bad URL. The “web” (Google-powered, or whoever) should be assisting people and helping them find what they need to find. Errors are failures, and users should be sheltered from failures. As architects of the web, that’s part of our responsibility.
Chris

February 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 am

On the same note…

I live in Arlington, Texas and just noticed that Time Warner Cable (Road Runner High Speed Online) has hijacked all URL’s that aren’t registered. The html title of the page that comes up is “Website Suggestions.” What a joke. It has a Yahoo search at the very top and the very bottom (jeez, imagine that), Sponsored Results and Web Results in the middle. But around the edges it is totally whored out. Generic monetization out the wazoo. The only reason people won’t be able to gripe is because you can opt out of the “service” (but you have to go to Road Runner and log into your internet account to do it). Is this the new trend? Is everybody going to try this until people just give up?
Chris

February 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 am

RE: #93

Well, I just figured out you actually don’t have to log in to your Road Runner account. Looks like it sends you to http://ww23.rr.com/prefs.php and maybe sets a cookie. Anyway, it still pisses me off that Time Warner is sorta-kinda hijacking non-existent domain error pages (and my browser).