14 DAY TRIAL // Over a year ago, Microsoft made available a new tool designed to put to evolve generic 404 Error webpages. At that time, the Web Page Error Toolkit, available for free via the Microsoft Download Center, was intimately connected with the Redmond-based company's search engine, Live Search. As of June 19, 2009, the Web Page Error Toolkit was transitioned to the software giant's new search engine, Bing.
The concept behind the Web Page Error Toolkit is to allow web administrators to create customizable, search-enabled web error pages, rather than the default, and useless, 404 error messages. According to Microsoft, the customized 404 pages can substitute the standard IIS error pages. Such a move will undoubtedly serve to boost user experience since visitors will no longer end up on a dead page; instead, they will be offered options on an active page connected to Bing.
“The Web Page Error Toolkit enables you to use ASP.net and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) to create a dynamic page that replaces the default error page in your web server. The substituted page includes more useful information enriched by the results of a Bing query formed using relevant keywords inferred from the broken link. This allows you to offer assistance to your users when the original page they wanted is unavailable,” Microsoft explained.
Essentially, the Web Page Error Toolkit is set up not only to display a customized error message but also search results in accordance with relevant keywords fed through Bing. Admins will be able to leverage the Toolkit and an ASP.net application in concordance with an IIS server. Webmasters will need to have a Bing API AppID registered with Microsoft. Enabling the application is no more work than adding the <appSettings> section from the web.config.merge file into the web.config of a specific website. But the download comes with additional information on just how to deploy the toolkit.
“The application is delivered as a zipped Visual Studio project. You get all the files you need to run the default application and customize its functionality. In addition, we include various C# files defining the interface for keyword extraction, as well as some reference implementations of the keyword extractors,” Microsoft added.
The Bing Web Page Error Toolkit is available for download here.