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Error page notifications help you sleep better!

by Smallz Mancotywa

2007/01/18

I absolutely hate it when a client has to notify me of a broken link or that their site (not server) has gone down. They shouldn’t have to – we should know as soon as there is a problem, shouldn’t we? (rant, rant, moan, moan)
So I stormed off to Riaan , our Sys Admin’s desk and had a good bitch about it. Apparently it is difficult for the technical team to get some error notifications as soon as a problem arises.
I, of course, was not prepared to let go of the issue and eventually after tiring of the spit, froth and hot air coming from me, Riaan had a think about what we could do to solve this problem. After a while I saw a bead of sweat protruding from his brow… good sign - the synapses were being called to action - and boy did they fire!

Basically, Riaan decided that this problem is perhaps a bit too vast to control from our side and decided that enlisting the help of the users would be the best way forward.
A simple form has now been created for all error pages which will enable the users to notify us as soon as an error on any of the websites we host comes up.

Please test the form on these links if you need to see it to believe it:
• For a 403 (permission denied) error visit this link
• For a 404 (page not found) error visit this link

Users need to be taken care of at every turn and the Internet or software in general can be very frustrating when user shortcomings or technical faults occur. Offering them a helping hand to reach their goal is not only rewarding for the user but will ultimately have revenue benefits for the clients.

Now I am fully aware that most users may not fill in the form, but there are those that will and if they leave an email address, we can notify them as soon as the problem has been resolved - hopefully turning a negative experience into a positive one (with Quirk eMarketing branding attached, of course). This will not only help us achieve a website goal but it will mean that eMarketing Strategists/Account Managers can sleep with both eyes closed at night.
Rock a bye baby to all the eMarketing suits out there!

Do you have a fast method to be notified about error pages on your websites in place? I’d love your feedback on the subject.

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Muti

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Not so much a method for receiving notifications but rather a solution to deal with them. My stats package collects status code data so I can check it whenever I choose, and broken links should hopefully be a rare occurence anyway. I have a custom 404 page which logs the broken URI and the referring page to a database. Whenever this 404 page is hit, it checks the broken link against a database table which contains the correct link if one exists, and then redirects without the user even knowing (aside from the URL changing, of course). This is also helpful for when you decide to rename a page or section on your site but don't want to go through the hassle of changing every link to the old page, or notifying all your referrers to the change.

Posted by coda on 2007/01/18

Forgot to mention, it's also a nice way of telling people that you don't want at your site (typical hack attempts or other) to politely go elsewhere. For example, a couple of years ago I was receiving a ton of hits via searches for 'arab porn' (funny story that). I got so sick of seeing these referrals in my stats that I added some wildcard checking to my 404 page and redirected those referrals to this page. ;)

Posted by coda on 2007/01/18

hehe 'arab porn' hey... you should have added some google ads to that page :) but back to the error thing, because not all the sites we host are build by Quirk, some of them are a real 'piece of work' they generate a lot of errors, a missing image here, a broken link there... we also host a lot of sites, all of that together is a lot of data :\ i'm pretty happy with the forms, it's a start :) happy friday :)

Posted by riaan on 2007/01/18

amazing how many businesses don't use custom error pages, like absa and standardbank :\

Posted by riaan on 2007/01/18

Thanks for the input coda. I am sure our team is looking at ways to improve error detection and solutions before the user gets to it. I am at nature a bit of a sceptic and like to plan for the worst. Some experience tells me that there will always be problems that arise out of the "code" (ala Ghost in the Shell anime) that require human intervention. I actually like this because it keeps the technology human and I would think customers perceive a value in the "personal touch". The ability to communicate and share information is why the internet has grown again. Technology is just the vehicle for what we want to achieve and not the end goal. Giving them the option to notify you easily when problems arise is key...cause the problems will always be there in one form or another.

Posted by Smallz on 2007/01/19

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To prevent GottaQuirk from becoming spam central, we block the use of certain words like porn, sex etc. We apologise for any inconvenience, but can't spend our lives deleting messages left by spammy friends.

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