We have all seen the “Page Not Found” error while surfing the web. This is commonly called a “404 Error.” All websites, political or not, face this issue. Lost pages come from many sources. They may be old links or the user has a typo in their url address. Either way, it is your responsibility to help the user find the content they are actually looking for. It can be a challenge to figure out where to send the user after the error.
There are several different ways websites handle this problem. Senate hopeful Rand Paul from Kentucky has his error page be the home page. If you go to http://www.randpaul2010.com/not-a-real-page you will not be able to tell that it was an error. The only sign of an error is in the title of the page. If you are using a browser that supports tab browsing, you will see the tab entitled “Nothing found for Not-a-real-page.” While it is unlikely that anyone would be intending to find Rand Paul’s page on “not-a-real-page,” the point is the error could be much more helpful. An average user would think the error was the website’s fault since there was no alert that the intended content is missing.
A second solution is to tell the user that the page was not found with a custom 404 error page. Another Senate hopeful just north of Paul’s state, is Rob Portman of Ohio. If you go to http://www.robportman.com/not-a-real-page you will see that his site explicitly states there was an error. This is helpful because, 1) it helps the user figure out the problem and 2) it’s honest. It even has a link to go back to the home page. I would suggest Portman go a bit farther and have a “Are you looking for…” section with a handful of popular links like “Donate” and “Volunteer.” At the very least you want to give the user enough information to find the solution. As in all web design, the less work you place on the user means the more likely they are to stay and engage your content.
The worst is to do nothing. Take a look at New York’s Republican party’s error at http://www.nygop.org/not-a-real-page. Most visitors would try the url once or twice more and then give up entirely. By doing nothing, you will annoy visitors interested in your campaign and may also lose a volunteer or even a donor.
No one ever wants to plan for having a broken website. That’s not what you pay your webmaster to make. However, users will find ways to make it to non-existent pages. It will happen and the best approach is to capture those lost users. They will appreciate it and in return will engage your content and if you are luck, they will donate.
The next post will be on June 22nd.