how to handle broken links in HTML

gozlemci · 01-26-2012, 02:30 AM

Hi there;
When I implement a web site, I would like to handle the broken links and put relevant HTML file. For example, when the visitor tries to reach non-existent link actually :

www.mysite.com/non_existent_file.html

I would like to handle this request. How?

Thanks.

jhwilliams · 01-26-2012, 04:37 AM

You could check to see if the target exists with a rewrite rule, and redirect appropriately.

Something like this:

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ /handler.php [L,R=301]

Nominal Animal · 01-26-2012, 01:26 PM

If you are using Apache, I'd recommend setting a ErrorDocument 404 /local/url/to/script instead. The custom error handler script receives all pertinent information about the failed request or missing page.

The trickiest implementation of a 404 (Not found) error handler I know (not currently used in production, though) tries a number of alternate servers to locate the corresponding page. Very useful when migrating and combining web servers.

gozlemci · 01-27-2012, 12:54 AM

Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately my firm enforce me to use IIS.

Nominal Animal · 01-27-2012, 12:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gozlemci

Thank you for the replies. Unfortunately my firm enforce me to use IIS.

In that case, you must consult IIS documentation. This is an IIS configuration issue, not a programming problem.