Small Business Digital CoachGROW REVENUES BY 25 TO 100% OR MORE IN 90 DAYS OR LESS while reducing advertising cost and effort

On the good side (for you), the whole episode brought my attention to an oft-overlooked piece of valuable real estate you might be wasting on your website… your 404 Error Page.

Just in case you don’t know what that is, it’s the page that displays whenever a visitor to your website requests a page that either no longer exists (most commonly) or never existed.

For example, typing in www.yourwebsitename.com/yarmulke-boy-example3 will probably bring up a 404 Error page that draws a blank like this one from Lee McIntyre, (a favorite internet business coach).

Lee’s 404 error page is typical of most blogs and websites (including mine) because it leaves all that valuable real estate blank. Now don’t get me wrong Lee is one of the most brilliantly effective entrepreneurs out there, but by ignoring the opportunity to customize his 404 Error page, he’s not really strongly leveraging this particular resource.

I decided to check out another favorite mentor of mine, Business Coach Terry Dean, to see what his 404 Error page looked like. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like (as of today anyway):

Terry Dean’s page above is a better use of the 404 Error page because a whole list of options to connect to Terry are made available to the web visitor. Some of his most important pages such as his “About”, “Products” pages and others are made available right there.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be working on ideas to customize my 404 Error pages profitably. If you have any ideas for me, you can leave a comment below. This whole idea is not new, but I was reminded of the concept after Comcast (my internet cable provider) tried to hijack my default “Page Not Found” browser display with a page for their own purposes.

Usually, when you type in a nonsensical url website address like www.marsh3reaf.com , you’ll get a “Page Not Found” like the one I get (see picture below):

Instead, almost 2 weeks ago, I found that Comcast had hijacked my 404 error page and replaced my normal “Page Not Found” Page with their own customized page with this one below:

I had a few problems with this:

First, I tend to use the browser search as my own domain name availability pre-test before I check out any other services such as Godaddy.com.
Second, it really smacked of “BIG BROTHER” as I really don’t want Comcast to know anything I’m up to when I’m online! It’s bad enough they know my home address, home phone number and can tell that it’s me whenever I call…

Third, when on earth did I opt-in to their service?

This last part really bugged me the most when I found out just how difficult it became to OPT-OUT! Apparently hijacking my “Page Not Found” was part of a service they’re calling Domain Helper Service:

Which I never asked for, and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get taken off from.

Why is my internet pipeline provider concerned with “helping” me find my domains anyway?
2 days after I first tried to opt-out I was getting a call at my house (albeit from a very courteous rep) re-’re-verifying’ my decision to opt out of the silly Domain Helper Service.

Anyway, I’m not a conspiracy theorist (usually), and I’m a fairly normal guy (I think)… this just bugged me. What else does comcast know or want to know about me? Is there a reverse webcam staring at me through comcast’s internet service?

Don’t laugh, you never know… Anyway my own rant is starting to remind of the old quote, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me”!

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Till next time.