Transform The Useless 404 Error Page
A 404 error page tells you that the web server was not able to find the requested information. By default, your Wordpress 404 page should be an empty, plain page that says 404 Error - Not Found at the top. This default page is an obstacle that further confuses the lost traveler who arrives at your website. Where are the directions?
To improve the 404 page, you want to write some text with a link that directs the visitor to your home page. Or at least give them some options, such as links to the top 10 posts on your blog. The purpose of this is to retain the visitor that chanced upon your website and improve the bounce rate. Something simple like this would even work: “Looks like what you’re looking for does not exist. Go to the home page.”
But why not take a step further than this and make money with the 404 error page?
Catch-all Adsense Arbitrage On Wordpress
Keep in mind that the Wordpress 404 error page shows up for all queries appended to your domain url except for the permalinks that actually exist.
With that said, Google Adsense contextual advertising works perfectly in this case because it can serve ads based on the text in the url. So if the visitor hits your 404 message for a url like http://www.itmilk.com/2007/11/20/penn-state-scholarships, then Adsense would read the “Penn State Scholarships” part in the url and serve up relevant ads. Since these Adsense ads are generally targeted with precision to what the visitor is looking for, he or she is very likely to click on the ads.
This method works best if you recently changed your website’s software or if you bought a pre-existing domain name. Then you would have search queries coming in for hundreds or thousands of no-longer-existing webpages. For instance, I have a domain that used to be a Digg clone, which had a couple thousand of webpages that are still indexed in Google right now. After setting up a Wordpress blog on the same domain, I am now able to convert the traffic flowing in for the old webpages. Stop allowing this gold dust to slip through your fingers and monetize this traffic now.
Easily Change Your 404 Page In Wordpress
In an FTP program, navigate to the wp-content/themes folder and find your theme. Inside the theme, if there isn’t already a file named 404.php, create one with the necessary header, sidebar, and footer calls. Edit that file and insert up to three Google Adsense blocks in it. From my experience, a horizontal line of 300-pixel square blocks works best.
404 Error Adsense Arbitrage In Action
Want to see the Adsense 404 Error page in action? Try visiting these random url’s on my blog and note the advertisements:
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