Customizing Thesis Theme 404 Error Page

Custom 404 error page is your only chance to turn a lost visitor into a reader of your blog. Thesis Theme has a special function to handle 404 error page. It’s a semi-custom page as it does keep with your theme and design, but it only show “You 404′d it. Gnarly, dude.” to your visitors. You may want to change the wording a little bit to show your own personality and suitable for your brand image.

What Is 404 Error?

The 404 or page not found error message is an HTTP standard response code indicating that the page requested by client was not found in the server. It simply means the page you’re requesting does not exist.

In the following post, I’m going to show you how to customize your Thesis Theme 404 error page:

#1: Open custom_functions.php

Open custom_functions.php file using any text editor of your choice. The file is located at thesiscustom folder. This file is purposely for you to customize Thesis Theme without touching the core file.

#2 Adding 404 Error Page Title Action Hook

Add the following codes just below <?php in the file. The remove_action is removing the original 404 error page title while add_action is adding your own custom 404 error page title.

remove_action(’thesis_hook_404_title’, ’thesis_404_title’);
add_action(’thesis_hook_404_title’, ’custom_thesis_404_title’);

#3 Creating 404 Error Page Title Function

The following code should be added to the custom_functions.php file just below add_action code shown in step 2. The function simply prints out the 404 error page title in your browser.

function custom_thesis_404_title() {
?>
PUT YOUR 404 ERROR PAGE TITLE HERE
<?
}

#4 Adding 404 Error Page Content Action Hook

Add the following codes just below the code in step 3. The remove_action is removing the original 404 error page content while add_action is adding your own custom 404 error page content.

remove_action(’thesis_hook_404_content’, ’thesis_404_content’);
add_action(’thesis_hook_404_content’, ’custom_thesis_404_content’);

#5 Creating 404 Error Page Content Function

The following code should be added to the custom_functions.php file just below add_action code shown in step 4. This is the main function where you can customize your add in your own wording for 404 error page in Thesis Theme.

function custom_thesis_404_content() {
?>
 <p>ADD YOUR OWN 404 ERROR PAGE WORDING HERE</p>
<?
}

#6 Result

Finally you can upload custom_functions.php to your web server. And you can see the result by simply enter an invalid URL of your blog.

Conclusion

Try to be creative to turn lost visitors to your blog readers. It’s easy to cutomize 404 error page in Thesis Theme. And really, I love Thesis Theme so much.

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