The 17 Best 404 Pages on the Internet
Top prizes go to Presidential candidates, pro athletes, and the Bloomberg web team.
Whether you’ve got fat fingers, a penchant for broken links, or a general inability to spell, you’ve ended up at a 404 error page. These are always annoying, but the Internet’s done a great job of making your URL fails worthwhile. Here’s a roundup of the best 404 pages out there now.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
IPlanWebsites
The dark corners of the Internet are full of creeps looking for company. Trust me. At least Jon Stewart tries to be funny about it.
This page turns a regular old 404 into a chance to drop a wisdom bomb: if you can’t fix the error, change how you feel about it. Boom.
NASA
Here, NASA proves that the black hole of the Internet is darker and deeper than anything we’ll ever find in space.
Major League Baseball
Everyone makes errors. Even the MLB’s best. Just hit refresh to scan through their mini gif library of baseball flops.
Washington Wizards on NBA.com
Ditto for basketball. [Here]((http://www.nba.com/wizards/404), the Washington Wizards’ resident genius Marcin Gortat illustrates the awkwardness of an Internet fail.
Steve Lambert
Speaking of awkward, this page claims to be “The Most Awkward 404 Not Found Page on the Internet.” Here, artist Steve Lambert, the kind of guy you’d hate to get stuck with at a party, mutters for an indeterminate amount of time (I couldn’t sit through the whole thing) about how, uh, you might have got here, but, I mean, you could stay, if you want, I guess.
Atlanta Hawks on NBA.com
Not all sites try to make you feel better about your Internet incompetence. Here, the Hawks’ Dikembe Mutumbo shuts you down harder than a 404 message ever could.
IMDb
The best 404 pages are the ones that make your wasted time worthwhile. IMDb’s got a brilliant collection of imagined error quotations from real movies.
Blue Mountain Media
The folks at Blue Mountain Media present you with a fully functioning PacMan simulator to make up for the precious seconds they’ve taken from your day. Probably not bad for their time-on-site metrics.
Romain Brasier
In his “about me,” Roman Brasier literally says “J’aime les pages 404.” He isn’t kidding. Proving his Internet cred, he embeds a simulator for the classic video game Lemmings.
Hillary Clinton
Admit it. Hillary just made you chuckle.
Bernie Sanders
Not to be outdone by his fellow Democrat, Bernie Sanders pulls the cute-grandpa-explaining-technology card: “The good news is you’re on the right website — and it’s a really good website — the bad news is, you’re on the wrong page.”
Bloomberg
It’s unclear what Bloomberg web developers are smoking, but they deserve an award for making some of the most bizarre error pages out there. Their 404 page gets real dark real fast.
Bloomberg, Part 2
Someone at Bloomberg definitely took the adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, confuse ‘em” to heart. The 500 page for their Politics section, featuring a shifty-eyed Herman Cain, is totally nuts.
Bloomberg, Part 3
On the Politics section 404 page, you’re greeted by a lightning-fingered Joe Biden rapidly spinning a hot pink ‘404’ with his eyes.
NPR
On a slightly less insane note, NPR’s 404 page lists a bunch of things that, like the URL you’re looking for, have disappeared.
This Russian Construction Company
This Russian classic is the archetype for just how fun an error page can be. Nothing can beat it. Check out those dope 1970s dance moves. And that guy on the pile of bricks is chill af. The text itself says something like, “You aren’t here by accident!!! Stop working and dance with Moldovan gastarbeiter. P.S. No gastarbeiters were hurt during the creation of this clip.” I still don’t know what a gastarbeiter is, but if it means getting to dance to this sweet Moldovian soundtrack all day (click through — there’s an entire playlist), then sign me up.
