Affiliate links on 404 page?

[T.J.]

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I'm currently in the process of building a new section on a site
and have the main entry page and a number of other pages built,
but have lots of broken links on it at the moment, and will have
for the next few days.
As the front page is already indexed and getting a number of hits
it has led to my 404 page geting around 70 visitors a day.
Is there any reason why I cant put affiliate links on a 404 page?

[Mogga]

Mend the links.

Or send people back to a page that works.

[T.J.]

Not enough hours in the day at the moment to set up all the
broken links, and definately haven't got the time to make a 404
page to send people back to the relevant sections (plus a lot of
the pages aren't even built yet)
I was thinking of just setting up about 20 affiliate text links on
my 404 page until I get more time.
I know AdSense don't allow this, but do the affiliate networks?

[Shane]

why not just redirect the 404 page or copy the main or category page and upload it as the 404 ..


with a note it's the 404 page of course still

[km8]

Originally posted by T.J.
Not enough hours in the day at the moment to set up all the
broken links, and definately haven't got the time to make a 404
page to send people back to the relevant sections (plus a lot of
the pages aren't even built yet)
I was thinking of just setting up about 20 affiliate text links on
my 404 page until I get more time.
I know AdSense don't allow this, but do the affiliate networks?

Just send them back to the home page.

The site should not be live with broken links ...

... whether it's got AS or not.

As a surfer, I really hate that kind of lazy, sloppy programming.

[morleymouse]

as you obviously know which links are broken, and which are popular, fix the ones that are getting the most hits first.

in answer to origional Q no theres no problem with links on 404 pages, but if a user clicks a link, sees the page with lots of banners and links thinks "oh, must have clicked wrong" goes back, clicks somewhere else and see's the same thing, I dont think they would hang about long.

[harris1]

Just send them back to the home page.

Nice quick fix that will Salvage some of the traffic.

[T.J.]

The problem is, it's all work in progress.
I am adding more pages all the time and everytime I add a new
page it has a link to ten more new pages. I don't want to not
upload the pages as I build them as I want the new pages indexed as soon as possible.
I can't use a 404 to send visitors back to the main page as the
site is split up in to too many sections to make that practical.
My idea is to just use my 404 page temporarily and get
visitors of the site ASAP until it is finished.

[morleymouse]

theres nothing to say 404's dont count against page rank... might be something to think about

[harris1]

theres nothing to say 404's dont count against page rank

Interesting not heard that or thought of the implications before. Thing is surely if a page is missing its better for the user to go to the sites root page that get the standard 404 error ?

I cant see how it could be a major factor in determining page rank, more good house keeping.

[T.J.]

Originally posted by harris1
Interesting not heard that or thought of the implications before. Thing is surely if a page is missing its better for the user to go to the sites root page that get the standard 404 error ?

Not if you can use the 404 to send the visitor to information they
are looking for via your affiliate link
To be honest, I am surprised this isn't being done on a regular
basis (maybe it is)