Error Docs 404 Status

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 8:14 am

Im not sure if this has been discussed before, tried searching but couldnt find much.

Maybe its just me, but when someone gets a 404 error it returns a 200 status.

Example:

Code:




ERROR: 404 - Page Not Found


   


The file requested was not found


Hint: Verify that the file exists - Filenames are usually case sensitive - Check for spelling errors





Your IP : ******


Page Requested : /modules.php?name=ErrorDocuments&file=404&rs=file.html


Agent : Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.19) Gecko/20081217 K-Meleon/1.5.2


Redirect Status : 200

This is with RN 2.3.0.1 and the only thing I checked is the htaccess and thats exactly as it is in the install.

Is there a solution for this? I ask because certain crawlers return errors on the redirect status.

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Not sure I'm understanding your question/issue. Here's the way it works regardless of whether it's a crawler or a human.

* A page is requested
* The server/browser issues a 404 return code if page is not found
* The ErrorDocument Apache directive redirects it to a more friendly url
* The server/browser issues a 200 return code because the redirect url is found

Does that help?

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 12:10 pm

Yes, I totally understand that, let me be more specific.

When trying to apply for a service, the service requests verification of ownership. One service would be SiteAdvisor, which then gives this error message:

Quote:

It appears that the Web site horror-code.com is returning an HTTP 200 status response code in the header of 404 pages.

We cannot verify a Web site that is configured this way because it allows anyone to verify themselves as the owner of your site. Please update your Web site server configuration to return 404 status codes in the headers for pages that do not exist. Once your site is configured this way then you can return and request a file name verification.

For these services would it be wiser for me to remove the redirects during verification, or is there a workaround?

Thanks again.

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 12:41 pm

Probably. That's an interesting issue I never considered because the issue to be resolved was user/theme friendly pages. I'll have to check the headers that Apache sends when they use their standard error pages.

Posted: Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:40 pm

Just wanted to note that Goole WebmasterTools site verification returns this error as well, but only after I had removed the verification and reinstated it. I think it would work the same once I remove the redirects, but just wanted to put it out there, as I might forget... Smile