Project DescriptionCreates a dynamic, customizable error page to show on IIS 5 or greater and direct site visitors that encountered an error to pages on your site similar to the one that generated the error. The page is found through integration with Bing through the Bing API.
For large web sites with extensive amounts of content, 2 to 10 percent of traffic is looking for pages that either don’t exist or have been moved. Most web servers return a generic 404 error page or a sitemap when a user’s desired page cannot be found. These unhelpful pages often result in a dead end for users.
With the re-architected, easily deployed Web Page Error Toolkit, you can create dynamic 404 pages that contain customized error messages along with search results seeded with relevant keywords to help your users move past the missing page and find the information they need.
The Toolkit is a customizable ASP.net application that replaces the default error page on your IIS server. The process works as follows:
- A user's browser sends a request for a page that no longer exists at the request URL.
- Your server identifies a 404 and executes the Toolkit.
- Toolkit extracts keywords and renders them back to the user's browser.
- User's browser sends a request to Bing API.
- Bing API returns appropriate results to user's browser.
- User's browser renders results in the context of the page that you have customized.
The Toolkit enables you to use the Bing API to return results for the specified domain and locale, control the number of results returned on your page, choose whether to offer spelling corrections, and customize your error message.
You also have the option of choosing from several keyword extraction strategies that are included with the install, or providing your own implementation.