Finally, use Widgets to maintain and customize your 404 Error and Search Not Found pages in Genesis Framework and Child Themes.

deckerweb

David Decker

wpautobahn

<h4>New Flexibility plus Enhanced User Experience</h4>
<p>We all know that sometimes 404 Errors happen on our sites. And sometimes users search but get no results. I believe it’s better to serve users some highly customized and maintained pages/content areas for these cases. What better to do that with Widgets in WordPress? — In my opinion Genesis Framework could improve here so that’s why I just made this little plugin to FINALLY have these two cases maintainable EASILY via your widgets admin. Just place in a search widget, your last blog posts, an image widget, some explanation via text widget, some galleries… You got it. The possibilities are endless. Finally.</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" title="Customize Genesis 404 Page and Search Not Found Page - With Genesis Widgetized Not Found Plugin" width="750" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0RJldBSH_fA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Just a great helper tool for Genesis Child Themes!</p>
<p><strong>Please note:</strong> The plugin requires the <em>Genesis Framework</em>, a paid premium product released by StudioPress/ WPEngine, Inc. <a href="https://deckerweb.de/go/genesis/" rel="nofollow ugc">(via studiopress.com)</a></p>
<h4>What the Plugin Does – Advantages & Benefits</h4>
<ul>
<li>Helps users stay longer on your site because you can give options like search form, recent posts, introductory text, image(s) etc.</li>
<li>Hugely improved user experience! (Helps decrease the “Oops, I broke the internet…” experiences…)</li>
<li>Easily customizeable for any webmaster! — In Widgets admin or in Customizer > Widgets</li>
<li>Works across Genesis child themes – so you can switch your “skin” but not loosing this tool 🙂</li>
<li>Provides <em>extra Search Form Widget</em> with more options than the default WordPress core widget.</li>
<li>Handy search form Shortcode!</li>
<li>Ideal for multilingual websites (for example with “WPML”): Much better handling of 404/Not found content for different languages. — <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-widgetized-notfound/#faq" rel="ugc">See bottom of FAQ section here</a> for more info on that.</li>
</ul>
<h4>General Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Small & lightweight plugin tool: Just activate plugin, place your widgets and you’re done!</li>
<li>Adds a new widget area (Sidebar) for the “404 Error Page”</li>
<li>Adds a new widget area (Sidebar) for the “Search not found” page (if there are no results for a search term)</li>
<li>Adds a new Search Form Widget – which gives you more options than the default WordPress “Search” widget! (Search text, Submit text etc.)</li>
<li>Adds 2 Shortcodes: a customizeable Search form to place anywhere Shortcodes are supported, plus Shortcode for this plugin’s widget areas.</li>
<li>Special Bonus for bbPress 2.3+: make the forum search not found content/status widgetized – take full control!</li>
<li>Adds a few CSS styles for the content area to properly divide widgets with some more space (all other styling is recommended via your child theme)</li>
<li>Included are two handy helper functions (via child theme) for applying the Genesis ‘Full-Width’ layout option for one or both ‘not found’ cases! — <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-widgetized-notfound/#faq" rel="ugc">See the FAQ section for more info on that!</a></li>
<li>For developers & advanced users: plugin provides lots of filter and acton hooks throughout for easy customization if ever needed.</li>
<li>All markup is fully compatible with Genesis 2.0+, that means for HTML5 if the child theme supports it (is done all automatically & conditionally under the surface!).</li>
<li>Integrated default Genesis filters <code>genesis_search_text</code> and <code>genesis_search_button_text</code> for default strings :-).</li>
<li>Fully internationalized! Real-life tested and developed with international users in mind!</li>
<li>Fully WPML compatible!</li>
<li>Fully Multisite compatible, you can also network-enable it if ever needed (per Site use is recommended).</li>
</ul>
<h4>Translations</h4>
<ul>
<li>English (default, <code>en_US</code>) – always included</li>
<li>German (<code>de_DE</code>) – always included</li>
<li>German formal (<code>de_DE_formal</code>) – always included</li>
<li>Spanish (<code>es_ES</code>) – user-submitted – currently 37% complete for v1.5.0</li>
<li><code>.pot</code> file (<code>genesis-widgetized-notfound.pot</code>) for translators is also always included 🙂</li>
<li>Easy plugin translation platform with GlotPress tool: <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/genesis-widgetized-notfound" rel="nofollow ugc">Translate “Genesis Widgetized Not Found & 404″…</a></li>
</ul>
<h4>Liked Genesis Widgetized Not Found & 404?</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-widgetized-notfound/reviews/?filter=5/#new-post" rel="ugc"><strong>Rate us 5 stars</strong> on WordPress.org</a> 🙂</li>
<li>Join our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/deckerweb.wordpress.plugins/" rel="nofollow ugc"><strong>Facebook User Community Support Group</strong></a></li>
<li>Like our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/deckerweb.wordpress.plugins/" rel="nofollow ugc"><strong>Facebook Info Page for Deckerweb Plugins</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://eepurl.com/gbAUUn" rel="nofollow ugc"><strong>Subscribe to my Newsletter for insider info on this plugin</strong></a>, plus tutorials and more stuff on deckerweb WordPress plugins – join a thriving community of site builders!</li>
</ul>
<h3>Check out my other Genesis Plugins</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-extra-settings-transporter/" rel="ugc"><strong>Genesis Extra Settings Transporter</strong></a> – addionally export Genesis specific plugin & child theme settings</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-whats-new-info/" rel="ugc"><strong>Genesis What’s New Info</strong></a> – Show the what’s new overview page via left-hand admin menu</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-layout-extras/" rel="ugc"><strong>Genesis Layout Extras</strong></a> – Setup Default Layouts in Genesis for WordPress</li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/deckerweb/genesis-shortcode-ui" rel="nofollow ugc">Genesis Shortcode UI (for Shortcake)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/deckerweb/genesis-elementor-canvas" rel="nofollow ugc">Genesis Elementor Canvas</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-featured-page-extras/" rel="ugc">Genesis Featured Page Extras</a> – more options for the featured page widget</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-prose-extras/" rel="ugc">Genesis Prose Extras</a> – add-on for Prose child theme</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-printstyle-plus/" rel="ugc">Genesis Printstyle Plus</a> – just print it out – only what’s needed</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-widgetized-archive/" rel="ugc">Genesis Widgetized Archive</a> – easily set up content for your Archive page (template)</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-widgetized-footer/" rel="ugc">Genesis Widgetized Footer</a> – easily set up your copyright/ credits/ back to top</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/genesis-connect-edd/" rel="ugc">Genesis Connect for Easy Digital Downloads</a> – plugin for easy & elegant integration</li>
<li><a href="https://eepurl.com/gbAUUn" rel="nofollow ugc"><em>My Genesis plugins newsletter</em></a></li>
</ul>
<h4>My Other WordPress Plugins</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/toolbar-extras/" rel="ugc"><strong>Toolbar Extras for Genesis & Elementor – WordPress Admin Bar Enhanced</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/toolbar-extras-oxygen/" rel="ugc"><strong>Toolbar Extras for Oxygen Builder – Add-On plugin</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/builder-template-categories/" rel="ugc"><strong>Builder Template Categories – for WordPress Page Builders</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/connect-polylang-elementor/" rel="ugc"><strong>Polylang Connect for Elementor – Language Switcher & Template Tweaks</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpdr-simple-downloads/" rel="ugc"><strong>Simple Download Manager for WP Document Revisions</strong></a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/multisite-toolbar-additions/" rel="ugc">Multisite Toolbar Additions</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/cleaner-plugin-installer/" rel="ugc">Cleaner Plugin Installer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://eepurl.com/gbAUUn" rel="nofollow ugc"><em>My plugins newsletter</em></a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Donate</h3>
<p>Enjoy using <em>Genesis Widgetized Not Found & 404</em>? <a href="https://www.paypal.me/deckerweb" rel="nofollow ugc"><strong>Please consider making a donation</strong></a> to support the project’s continued development.</p>
<h3>Plugin Links</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/genesis-widgetized-notfound" rel="nofollow ugc">Translations (WP GlotPress Platform)</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/genesis-widgetized-notfound" rel="ugc">User support forums</a></li>
<li><a href="https://gist.github.com/deckerweb/2473125" rel="nofollow ugc">Code snippets archive for customizing, GitHub Gist</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/deckerweb.wordpress.plugins/" rel="nofollow ugc">DECKERWEB WordPress Plugins Facebook Group</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Idea Behind / Philosophy</h3>
<p>I always wanted the 404 and search not found content easily customizeable! The standard messages like “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.” are a shame and lame user experience. Widgets in WordPress are powerful and allow for adding really diverse and custom stuff. So, when building my “Autobahn” child theme for Genesis I really came across this idea and technique. I also implemented it in a lot of my client projects. Now I am really happy to represent this tool in form of a plugin to make more webmasters and especially users/visitors really happy – and help them stay longer on your site!</p>
<h3>Credits</h3>
<ul>
<li>Thanks to Genesis User & Blogger <a href="https://twitter.com/RickRDuncan" rel="nofollow ugc">Rick R. Duncan @RickRDuncan</a> for mentioning and supporting this plugin when it came out – Thank you! 🙂</li>
<li>Any other blog post or something cool about this plugin? – Just contact me 🙂</li>
</ul>


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