I had a hosting company, my customers were satisfied, I used to work as hard as possible to make them happy…. but then 1and1 and others arrive to my country… and some of them begin to compare prices with them… I had to reduce my prices… I had to make dumping with prices (as 1and1) in order to not loss all of them… and finally, tired of fight with those cheap companies I had to close my hosting company to everyone and I decided to continues only as freelance with a selected small customers group that prefers me to a impersonal and cheap company….

I guess 1and1 and others like them will be increasing its prices in the next years, when they will have no competence, because their prices are not “natural”. They are making dumping from several years ago, but they are giants, so they have not problem to continue doing it for several years more… until they decide to increase its prices a lot or they will be close suddenly…

Sorry for this offtopic, just I wanted to warning you about those companies, but feel free to still use them, you are lucky if you thing that they are really cheap and you can put lots of files and websites in them… but then do not complain about its methods to get money using your websites, because I guess they have some contract with sedoparking in order to know which domains are interesting if expired using this 404 pages or other similar methods (406 error pages have same behaviour, etc…).

Have luck

thankss

“this is happening for your domain, at http://tellmelater.com/notfound.html too..

That’s intentional (as I mentioned above) for anyone who wants to test to see how they are redirected by 1&1.”

sorry, I wasn’t very clear – you asked above if anyone got the same in the UK. I’m in the UK..

“but I’m very careful to avoid these traps”

what!? there are more!!??

That’s intentional (as I mentioned above) for anyone who wants to test to see how they are redirected by 1&1.

sorry, I wasn’t very clear – you asked above if anyone got the same in the UK. I’m in the UK..

but I’m very careful to avoid these traps

what!? there are more!!??

is this 1and1′s fault? if so, it makes me quite angry!!

Yes, it’s definitely their decision to handle missing pages this way. I wasn’t very happy when I noticed it, either! It’s frustratingly sneaky, as well, because there are surely many 1&1 customers who have no idea that they are accidentally hosting ads for 1&1 anytime a visitor reaches a bad link or mis-types a URL.

this is happening for your domain, at http://tellmelater.com/notfound.html too..

That’s intentional (as I mentioned above) for anyone who wants to test to see how they are redirected by 1&1. If you’re in the US, you will see the blue 1&1 page not found message before the ads… where I am (in France), it just goes straight to the ads with no 404 message shown at all — an even worse experience, because it seems like the domain is parked (and visitors will think the main site doesn’t even exist anymore).

I still use 1&1 hosting for some of my hobby projects, because it’s cheap and reliable, but I’m very careful to avoid these traps (and I’ve published this one here).

I would not recommend their hosting to someone without the technical expertise to do this.

…is there any other way to use the error404 page and have it only for a specific domain? I wanted the error page to still have my site’s theme but also the information you have written here.

Shane, thanks for the comments — and you can definitely customize your error404.html page to match your particular site! I encourage it, in fact — it’s better if your 404 page can offer useful links within your site, matches the look, etc..

The code above is really just to have a sensible default from the very start of your development (and on hobby/personal sites), so that even if you don’t have the time to make a properly-integrated 404 page yet, you can at least avoid showing advertising for 1&1.

this is happening for your domain, at http://tellmelater.com/notfound.html too..

I run a few sites for my acupuncture clinics and my girlfriend’s business and it makes me really angry to think that 1and1 are forwarding potential clients on to their own pages, which, even worse, look like they are mine to those that don’t know, in order to make money.

another reason to find another host..

thanks again.

Edit .htaccess
Insert

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

Wait a few seconds and your wordpress 404 error page should work

Thanks for that Arthur. I was running into the same problem discussed here with WordPress and non-WordPress sites alike, all hosted at 1&1. Very annoying. I used your code in my .htaccess file, and while it doesn’t display any of my WordPress theme’s error files (404.php etc), it at least keeps them on the site, instead of whisking them away to Sedo’s shady linkland. I imagine this will work for all of my sites while I decide on a new host.

Thanks for the article. Helps me greatly.

But is there any other way to use the error404 page and have it only for a specific domain? I wanted the error page to still have my site’s theme but also the information you have written here.

I host a personal domain and a business domain on my account and do not care about the error404 parking for my personal domain, only the business domain.

I didn’t think it was possible but wanted to double check because from what I understand this problem is exactly what the article is written to explain.

Thanks in advance for any advice given.

Thanks,
Shane

I just wanted to let you know that your website for Preeta is really cool and I am enjoying your blog too.

Thanks!
Julia