Maxwell Morgan

Pratik Barvaliya

Rareview®

Damir Tahiri

Simon Dickson

<p>Take control of your site’s 404 Page Not Found error response with this simple, lightweight and core-friendly plugin.</p>
<p>Out of the box, WordPress treats 404 pages as a technical matter, with themes encouraged to include a hard-coded <code>404.php</code> template. But that means it’s difficult for site owners to make changes.</p>
<p>404 pages have become a space for websites and publishers to have a little fun, putting a smile on visitors’ faces as their journey is halted. They can also serve a useful navigational purpose, guiding users to the site’s latest or most popular content, or offering a search box.</p>
<p>By using WordPress’s built-in Pages feature, you can design and serve a feature-rich 404 page, making full use of WordPress content and navigation blocks. And you can edit and maintain it as easily as any other Page.</p>
<p>Just activate this plugin, then select your desired Page from the dropdown list on the Settings &rarr; Reading page.</p>
<p>Developer documentation and source code are available on GitHub.</p>
<h3>Development</h3>
<p>This plugin uses modern build tooling for development.</p>
<p>Source code is publicly available at:<br />
https://github.com/rareview/page-as-404</p>
<h3>Build process</h3>
<p>JavaScript and CSS assets are compiled for distribution.<br />
The uncompiled source code and build instructions can be found in the repository above.</p>
<p>Typical development workflow:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>composer install</code></li>
<li><code>composer lint</code></li>
<li><code>composer format</code></li>
<li><code>npm install</code></li>
<li><code>npm run watch</code> or <code>npm run build</code></li>
</ul>
<p>PHP dependencies are managed with Composer for development purposes only.<br />
The distributed plugin includes only the compiled assets required at runtime.</p>


Page as 404


Something so simple that's often overlooked. Much easier than having to modify the theme. It's also nice that if you're logged it, you can edit the page directly.






Works great, surprised this isn't in core


I love that it’s lightweight, core-friendly, and works seamlessly with the block editor. Being able to design a custom 404 page using blocks in the editor is incredibly useful.


A must-have plugin for better 404 pages


It is very rare to see a plugin that solves a common problem in a native WordPress way. I like how Page as 404 doesn’t overload the dashboard with custom branding, upsell popups, or unnecessary UI. It just solves a very common problem. This should be a core feature.


Solves a Real Problem Without the Noise


It does exactly what it says and covers all best practices (sitemap, robots, etc.). Code looks solid and trustworthy.



Should be part of WordPress.


Simple but very useful

The lightweight and core-friendly way to manage your site's 404 response using a standard Page within your site

Kunal

<p><strong>Custom 404 Pro</strong> replaces WordPress’s default 404 behaviour with a proper redirect. Instead of leaving visitors on a dead-end error page, you can send them to any page on your site or an external URL — with the HTTP status code of your choice.</p>
<h4>Redirect Modes</h4>
<ul>
<li><strong>WordPress Page</strong> — pick any published page from a dropdown; the plugin redirects to it automatically.</li>
<li><strong>Custom URL</strong> — enter any absolute URL to redirect 404s off-site or to a specific path.</li>
<li><strong>HTTP Status Code</strong> — choose 301, 302, 307, or 308 to match your SEO or caching requirements.</li>
</ul>
<h4>404 Logging</h4>
<p>When logging is enabled, the plugin records every 404 hit to a database table so you can see exactly what is broken:</p>
<ul>
<li>Request path</li>
<li>Visitor IP address (can be disabled for privacy/GDPR compliance)</li>
<li>Referrer URL</li>
<li>User agent</li>
<li>Timestamp</li>
</ul>
<p>Logs are searchable and can be deleted individually, in bulk, or all at once. They can also be exported as a CSV file. A configurable retention policy lets you automatically cap the table by row count, by age, or both — with a daily background cleanup and an on-demand Prune Now button.</p>
<h4>Email Notifications</h4>
<p>Optionally receive an admin email each time a 404 is logged. Designed for low-traffic monitoring — if you expect high 404 volume, keep this off to avoid inbox flooding.</p>
<h4>Multisite Support</h4>
<p>Works correctly on WordPress Multisite installations — activation creates the logs table for each site in the network.</p>
<h4>Multilingual Support</h4>
<p>Compatible with <strong>Polylang</strong> and <strong>WPML</strong>. The redirect page is resolved to the correct language variant for the current visitor automatically.</p>


Custom 404 Pro

Take control of every 404 on your site — redirect visitors to a custom page or URL, log what broke, and get notified when it matters.

Page as 404 vs Custom 404 Pro