404 pages shouldn't be dead ends

Anyone who has surfed the Web for any time has hit a so-called 404 error page. These are "page not found" messages that are served when a person types a bad url or the content no longer exists at that address. 

This TED presentation from Renny Gleason points out that most website operators are missing a great opportunity to make the most of a bad situation. Instead of serving up a page full of technical jargon -- usually technical wording peppered with references to "404" -- why not deliver a page that aims to restore "a broken relationship"?

This something we've been doing on The Bakersfield.com Network for awhile. Here are five screenshots of our 404 pages.

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