Getting the Most out of Your Browser

Introduction

Browsers

Newsgroups

Listservs

Error Messages and Missing Pages

     Sometimes when you attempt to reach a Web page, either by typing its URL or by clicking on a link, your efforts will be in vain. Instead, you will see the dreaded "HTTP 404 - File not found" message or something similar to indicate that the page is not available.
     If that happens don't give up, thinking that the page has disappeared. That could be the case; webmasters sometimes remove pages from servers. In other cases, however, you may have made a typing error or the Web site may have been reorganized so that the material might still be available at a different location. Try one of the following suggestions.
     1) Check your typing. If you typed the URL in your browser's address box, look carefully at what you typed. Did you omit, repeat or transpose some characters? The Internet is unforgiving where typing addresses is concerned. One error can doom your attempt to reach a site.
     Especially check lookalike characters. Is that round character a zero or a letter O? Is that straight vertical mark the letter L or the numeral 1?
     Also check the end of the URL. Is it .htm or .html? Some sites use one extension for files, and some use the other. Check the top-level domain to be sure you have the correct one. Not all top-level domains end in .com. Should it be .org, .net or something else?
     2) Back off. In this case, that expression does not mean to shy away from something. Rather, it means to work your way up, level by level, from the URL with which you started. Suppose the URL is
          http://www.someplace.com/records/years/2002/months/sept/files.htm
Remember from the Getting the Most out of Your Browser page that forward slashes in a URL indicate directories on a Web server. Try moving up one level at a time. In your browser's address box highlight files.htm and hit the delete key on your keyboard (or you can click to the right of the URL and backspace until files.htm is deleted). Then hit the enter key. That will move you up one level on the server, to
          http://www.someplace.com/records/years/2002/months/sept/
     If a sept directory exists at that level on the server, you will see either its contents or a default page. In either case you have made progress, and you can look for the information you need. If you still receive an error message, delete the next part of the URL so that you are left with
          http://www.someplace.com/records/years/2002/months/
     Keep working your way up until you find something useful or hit a dead end at the top level of the site. Sometimes successful research requires persistence.
     Note: If the error message came when you used a link on a Web site, you might want to send e-mail to that site's webmaster to let him or her know. Keeping Web sites up to date is a challenging job, and most webmasters appreciate being notified when something on their site needs to be corrected.
     3) Search. Maybe the site you want is still available, but it has moved to a different server. Use a search engine to seek the page's title or something unique in the site's content. You might find it.
     4) Try again. If nothing in steps 1-3 helped, wait a while and try going to the page again. It's possible that a power failure, computer problem or breakdown in the site's Internet connection caused a temporary glitch. The site may be working fine the next time you try it.