4.04 - the day when you can find what you lost

Happy 404 Day! We hope you find the right page in your life today.

The fourth day of the fourth month, 4.04 – this date is associated with a famous error message that we, as Internet users, have all observed at some point.

What is there to celebrate?

Since the 1990s, April 4 has attracted active Internet users as a symbolic occasion to celebrate the day of everything connected with the World Wide Web. True, this date has a powerful rival, May 17 – the day when the standard for WWW (World Wide Web) pages, developed by Timothy Berners-Lee, was approved.

There is also April 7 (Runet Day), September 30 (proposed in 1998), and many of the former USSR republics celebrate an Internet holiday on the launch dates of their own first-level domains…

And yet, it is April 4, in our opinion, that is the most interesting candidate. If only because the date 4.04 as Internet Day was officially approved by the Vatican itself!

It happened like this: in 1998, the Catholic Church recognized the World Wide Web as a treasury of human knowledge, and in 2000, Saint Isidore of Seville, who lived in the 6th century AD. has been called the Internet's chief patron (or at least temporarily serving as its patron). The fact is that Saint Isidore created the first European encyclopedia, “Etymologies, or Elements in 20 books.” The then Pope John Paul II argued the choice by saying that the Internet is an encyclopedia of human knowledge. In addition, Saint Isidore invented cross-references in the text, reminiscent of the system of modern hyperlinks on the Internet.

As far as can be understood from the press of that period, the coincidence of the feast day of St. Isidore and 4.04 occurred by chance. But the Internet public jumped at this opportunity with joy – after all, 404 is familiar to everyone.

But what is 404?

What does this number mean? HTTP uses three-digit codes for error messages. The first digit, 4, means that an error occurred on the user's end (for example, they typed the URL incorrectly and entered an address that does not exist). The other two digits, 04, are the serial number of the status in the 4xx block. By default, the 404 response code is accompanied by a standard message in human language – “Not Found”.

According to SpringTrax.com, nearly three-quarters of users immediately close a page with a 404 response code and go look for information elsewhere. However, by customizing the 404 page, instead of the standard protocol one, you can achieve various goals, including marketing ones.

According to someone?

SpringTrax is a company founded in 2013 that specializes solely in helping businesses with 404 errors.

I created SpringTrax because I wanted an easy way to find every possible source that is leading people to 404 errors. Existing tools didn't provide enough information: for example, most programs only capture broken links that people find on your site, but with SpringTrax I found that about 80% of visitors find broken links somewhere other than your own site (on other sites, in search results, on social networks, old bookmarks, etc.). — Matthew Edgar, CEO SpringTrax

In addition to finding all possible 404 cases, SpringTrax offers various ways to optimize such pages for a company, from redirecting to working pages to useful custom error message styling.

Fascinating Examples

Since the 404 response code page is one of the most frequently encountered on the Internet, many sites have turned the functional display of this error information into real works of art. Often the company’s brand, humorous messages, links to alternative materials, etc. are placed there. etc. This increases user loyalty and the chances that they will remember the site they visited and return to it one day.

Selling

First, here are a few examples of how 404 is used for marketing purposes.

The blogging platform Medium suggests that you do not leave the site, but read the best articles about how something was lost or not found:

Humorous

Sometimes (quite often!) a page with a 404 code is used simply to cheer up the user.

Self-irony of developers who “turn arrows at each other” for the 404 error:

Eccentric billionaire and head of Virgin Richard Branson in his repertoire:

The robot sadly broke down at Google:

GitHub plays on the Star Wars quote:

A bit of irony about the 404 page itself: Sorry, the page you requested was not found. And, even sadder, the funny 404 page was not found either.

Interactive

It also happens that some mini-games are placed on the 404 page, for example, a shooting gallery or racing. Or even, as in case with the Kualo hostera full-fledged version of the ancient game Space Invaders!