Viewing a Redirected page's code

[David]

I want to be able to see the source code a website used for its
404.shtml. The page itself simply redirects you to the homepage but I
want to know how the webmaster did it so seemlessly. Any ideas how to
get it? There is no chance to press the stop button because it is like
the page never comes up and when you load the 404 page it is the index.
I do not know if any of this makes sense but the page is
http://www.starfool.com/404.shtml

Regards,
D

 

[Tips]

I want to be able to see the source code a website used for its
404.shtml. The page itself simply redirects you to the homepage but I
want to know how the webmaster did it so seemlessly. Any ideas how to
get it? There is no chance to press the stop button because it is like
the page never comes up and when you load the 404 page it is the index.
I do not know if any of this makes sense but the page is
http://www.starfool.com/404.shtml

You can try Firefox with the LiveHTTPheaders extension. Open that extension
from the tools menu and when you request the page it will tell you the
headers being sent (301, 302, 404, etc.).

If it is not being redirected with headers, then use the Firefox Web
Developer Toolbar to disable JavaScript to see if that is the method. You
can also use the toolbar to disable meta-redirects.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

I want to be able to see the source code a website used for its
404.shtml. The page itself simply redirects you to the homepage but I
want to know how the webmaster did it so seemlessly. Any ideas how to
get it? There is no chance to press the stop button because it is like
the page never comes up and when you load the 404 page it is the index.
I do not know if any of this makes sense but the page is
http://www.starfool.com/404.shtml

Regards,
D

AFAIK, that is something that is done server side. You might want to
Google for Custom 404 Page. It also depends on what the server in question
is running.

 

[Tips]

AFAIK, that is something that is done server side. You might want to
Google for Custom 404 Page. It also depends on what the server in
question
is running.

I just checked the page. Instead of sending a 404 Not Found header, it
sends a 302 redirect to /index.html when a page isn't found.

This is very bad for search engines. When a page is not found, the server
should send a 404 Not Found header, not a redirect.

The images are sending 403 headers.

The site has serious problems.

Don't do that kind of redirect on your site or you risk destroying your
search engine rankings. I've seen it happen a couple of times.

If you don't like the regular 404 Not Found page, you can make a custom one
that has menus and images on it.

 

[David]

But on the contrary, this guy's site has pretty much dominated top
google rankings for a while now. I do not know how because as you have
said your self, much of the things he has done should have destroyed
his rankings but he is either extremely lucky(which I doubt) or
extremely good at what he has done. Thanks for the info.

D

 

[Tips]

But on the contrary, this guy's site has pretty much dominated top
google rankings for a while now. I do not know how because as you have
said your self, much of the things he has done should have destroyed
his rankings but he is either extremely lucky(which I doubt) or
extremely good at what he has done. Thanks for the info.

It will not automatically destroy your rankings. It will only destroy your
rankings under certain conditions (which I won't mention here because they
can be used for evil). Highly recommended not to redirect like that. I've
seen it cause damage more than once.