Ever get a URL from those who are technologically challenge and are not familiar with the art of copying-and-pasting and email? You most likely will get a painstakingly long URL on a piece of paper filled with a mix of different symbols and letters which is nearly impossible to type character-for-character. After spending quite sometime trying to copy the URL and accessing the site page an error comes up because it was not typed correctly, how frustrating! What is that error?

That error is a "404 error message". A 404 or a not-found error message is an error message indicating that the browser was able to communicate with the server but could not find the page that was requested. This happens when a URL is typed incorrectly, for example Google does not have a path /ColaApps there for Google.com/ColaApps will result in a 404. Another extremely common reason for a 404 error message to pop up is not that the URL was typed wrong but the path was moved. For example, lets say Google did have a page: Google.com/ColaApps but moved the path to /ColaApps-NYC, the original path would still result in a 404 error.

The purpose of the error message is to let you know "Hey, you've got the right domain, but something is a little wrong with the path". Web servers have the ability to create custom 404 pages such as these funny/creative ones.

Remember, next time you encounter a 404 error doesn't mean you are in the wrong place but most likely that the URL is wrong or the page moved. Just go back to the homepage and search for your destination