How to edit and customize 404 Page Not Found page in Magento 1.9

By default, if the customers try to access a page that does not exist, they will be redirected to the page displaying “404 Page Not Found”. However, Magento allows you to customize the content of the page so that you can send another message to the customers or redirect them to another page. This tutorial will show you how to edit and customize the “404 Page Not Found” in Magento store (working with version 1.9).

Related tutorials:

Edit 404 page content

1. Login to the backend of your Magento store.

2. From the Admin dashboard, navigate to CMS >Page.

3. Explore the Manage Pages section. Click on the 404 Not Found 1 line:

4. Explore the Page Information. From the left-side menu, select Content:

Edit the Content Heading and edit the content of the page in the content box.
Click Save Page to finish.

Customize 404 page

Now we will customize 404 page to enhance its looking, let’s say you want to add specific category listing with products to the 404 page, do as follow.

Add product listing from a specific category

Go to your theme’s layout at app/design/frontend/yourpackage/yourtheme/layout/cms.xml

In line 92 find

<cms_index_noroute translate="label">

1	<cms_index_noroute translate="label">

add the following code:

    <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>cms_index_noroute translate<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"label"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
        <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>label<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>CMS No<span class="sy0">-</span>Route Page<span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>label<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
        <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>reference name<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"content"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
            <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>remove name<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"cms.wrapper"</span><span class="sy0">/&gt;</span>
            <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>block type<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"catalog/product_list"</span> name<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"your_category_name"</span> template<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"catalog/product/list.phtml"</span> after<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"page_content_heading"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
                <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>action method<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"setCategoryId"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;</span>category_id<span class="sy0">&gt;</span><span class="nu0">12</span><span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>category_id<span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;/</span>action<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
                <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>action method<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"setColumnCount"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;</span>column_count<span class="sy0">&gt;</span><span class="nu0">5</span><span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>column_count<span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;/</span>action<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
                <span class="sy0">&lt;</span>action method<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"setDefaultGridPerPage"</span><span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;</span>limit<span class="sy0">&gt;</span><span class="nu0">15</span><span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>limit<span class="sy0">&gt;&lt;/</span>action<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
            <span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>block<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
        <span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>reference<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>
    <span class="sy0">&lt;/</span>cms_index_noroute<span class="sy0">&gt;</span>

<cms_index_noroute translate="label">

<label>CMS No-Route Page</label>

</block>

</reference>

</cms_index_noroute>

Change category name and number of columns as you want.

Add quick search box

you can add the following code to cms.xml line 92

<block type="core/template" name="top.search" as="topSearch" template="catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml"/>

1	<block type="core/template" name="top.search" as="topSearch" template="catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml"/>

and the code will look like this

<cms_index_noroute translate="label">
        <label>CMS No-Route Page</label>
        <reference name="content">
            <remove name="cms.wrapper"/>
            <block type="core/template" name="top.search" as="topSearch" template="catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml"/>
        </reference>
    </cms_index_noroute>