40 of the Most Beautiful 404 Pages on the Web

As the owner of Dr. Link Check, a broken link checker app, I have a love-hate relationship with 404 pages. On the one hand, I do everything I can to help our customers find and fix broken links and keep website visitors from running into 404 errors. On the other hand, I truly enjoy a unique and creative 404 page that sets a positive tone and lightens the mood.

While there are still too many websites that use the plain and dull default pages that come with their web servers, some custom 404 pages are gorgeous masterpieces. These hidden error pages are often the places where web designers can show their creativity and express themselves outside the bounds of what was specified by corporate.

For this article, I modified our crawler to search the web for the most beautiful 404 pages. The crawler went through a total of 500,000 websites, reducing the number of candidates to a few thousand, which I then manually narrowed down to the 40 pages presented below.

I hope these designs will give you the inspiration you’ll need to create your own distinctive 404 page. Crafting a pretty error page will not only be fun, but also makes sense from a customer conversion point of view. An appealing 404 page design can take away some of the bitterness of the broken link that a user just encountered. There’s a good chance the user will be pleasantly surprised and stay on your site rather than immediately hitting the back button and never visiting you again.

Now, enough with the chit-chat and on to why you’re actually here: the 404 pages.

1. flippingbook.com – The lost page

flippingbook.com 404 page

2. travel-wise.com – Trip from Madagascar

travel-wise.com 404 page

3. freshservice.com – Ventured too far

freshservice.com 404 page

4. managewp.com – Not the droid you’re looking for

managewp.com 404 page

5. fpsjob.com – Off the map

fpsjob.com 404 page

6. stremio.com – The cat with the wool

stremio.com 404 page

7. gumgum.com – It’s just a mouse

gumgum.com 404 page

8. wm.com – The recycled page

wm.com 404 page

9. insurancecanopy.com – Just like the Yeti

insurancecanopy.com 404 page

10. gamehag.com – Sim sala bim

gamehag.com 404 page

11. zyro.com – Lost in space (1)

zyro.com 404 page

12. inap.com – Lost in space (2)

inap.com 404 page

13. morningscore.io – Lost in space (3)

morningscore.io 404 page

14. sunscrapers.com – Lost in space (4)

sunscrapers.com 404 page

15. foobot.io – That stinks

foobot.io 404 page

16. cognitiveseo.com – Relaxing on the beach

cognitiveseo.com 404 page

17. smartrecruiters.com – Gone too far

smartrecruiters.com 404 page

18. tutorialzine.com – Catman to the rescue

tutorialzine.com 404 page

19. groundhogg.io – Not all who wander are lost

groundhogg.io 404 page

20. freshdesk.com – The secret land of four-oh-four

freshdesk.com 404 page

21. triphistoric.com – This page is history

triphistoric.com 404 page

22. mychooice.com – Hmm, where could it be

mychooice.com 404 page

23. snowys.com.au – Gone walkabout

snowys.com.au 404 page

24. kkday.com – The broken bridge

kkday.com 404 page

25. avast.com – IT department at work

avast.com 404 page

26. nexcess.net – The missing page

nexcess.net 404 page

27. dewaweb.com – Lost in the clouds

dewaweb.com 404 page

28. magicpress.net – Not the end of the world

magicpress.net 404 page

29. adbadger.com – You lost your way

adbadger.com 404 page

30. ventraip.com.au – Dinosaur food

ventraip.com.au 404 page

31. freepik.com – Outside of the universe

freepik.com 404 page

32. troopmessenger.com – Stranded on an island

troopmessenger.com 404 page

33. fork-cms.com – Lost at sea

fork-cms.com 404 page

34. readme.com – Dropped ice cream

readme.com 404 page

35. hopper.com – Lost in the stratosphere

hopper.com 404 page

36. godream.com – Gone with the wind

godream.com 404 page

37. freelancercareers.org – The confused robot

freelancercareers.org 404 page

38. ncino.com – At least the view here is nice

ncino.com

39. syndicode.com – The sad cat

syndicode.com 404 page

40. gdgsoft.com – Trapped in ice

gdgsoft.com 404 page

Wrapping It Up

Compiling this list of 404 pages was a fun thing for me to do. I hope you enjoyed the article and found some inspiration for your own website projects. If you already have a unique 404 page that you’re proud of, or have designed one based on this article, please message me via Twitter @wulfsoft and tell me about it. I’d love to see your creations.


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