This article is a follow up on ones written in October 2025 called ‘Reviewing the performance of custom 404 error pages on council websites‘ and in January 2024 called ‘Why custom 404 error pages are important for council websites‘. This article reveals that some limited improvement has been made on custom error pages, but there is still work to be done by councils.

In the original article on this topic I used the combined wisdom from GOV.UK and Google on custom 404s. From their advice I identified ten points which help to make up an effective 404 for people visiting council websites:

1. The page title of the custom 404 is ‘Page not found’
2. ‘Page not found’ is included as an H1 (the main title on a webpage)
3. The page includes a polite but brief explanation to help visitors understand why they have landed on the page
4. Branding and navigation on the custom 404 is the same as other pages on the website
5. The page includes to help visitors find what they are looking for on the website, such as homepage, search and A-Z links
6. The page includes contact information (form or links)
7. Breadcrumbs are not included
8. Technical jargon such as 404 or bad request is not included
9. Informal or humorous words (like oops) are not included
10. Red warning text or red background is not included
    

How was the review carried out?

I decided to investigate how well councils performed against the ten points on custom 404s mentioned above. This was very time consuming, but I think it was a fairer way to assess performance across councils. The work will also hopefully provide councils with a self-help resource to review and improve their own performance.

I have ranked council performance on 404s based on the score out of ten that they achieved:

Perfect: 10
Excellent: 9
Great: 8
Good: 7
Fair: 5 – 6
Poor: 3 – 4

How well do councils perform on custom 404s?

In general councils are continuing to do a reasonable job on custom 404s. 17 councils managed to get a perfect score of 10 (3 more than in 2025):

• Amber Valley Borough Council (2026 and 2025)
• Blaby District Council (2026 and 2025)
• Brighton and Hove Council (2026 and 2025)
• Chesterfield Borough Council (2026 and 2025)
• Ealing Council (2026 and 2025)
• East Renfrewshire Council (2026 and 2025)
• East Sussex County Council (2026 and 2025)
• Guildford Borough Council (2026 and 2025)
• Hertfordshire Council (2026)
• Middlesborough Council (2026 and 2025)
• Newark and Sherwood District Council (2026)
• Shropshire Council (2026)
• Southampton City Council (2026 and 2025)
• Suffolk County Council (2026 and 2025)
• Tandridge District Council (2026 and 2025)
• Wiltshire Council (2026 and 2025)
• Winchester City Council (2026 and 2025)

Score (0-10)	Performance	Number of councils – 2026	Number of councils – 2025
10	Perfect	17	14
9	Excellent	113	98
8	Great	89	91
7	Good	68	67
5-6	Fair	94	108
3-4	Poor	28	31

For many council website owners sorting out custom 404s appears to be a task that is done before launching a new website and then is generally forgotten about. I think this is true of most website owners, not just council website owners.

One of my bugbears in this review was finding councils who tried to explain away 404 issues with launching a new website – even though their website was launched a year or more earlier! It isn’t helpful to users and reveals that some councils aren’t periodically reviewing their 404 pages.

For example:

‘We launched a new website in April 2021 and some of the sections have changed names and some old content might be missing.’ (This comment also appeared in the 2025 review).

‘Since we redesigned and restructured our website this page has moved or is no longer available.’

‘We have upgraded our website and the page you are looking for has a new home.’

‘We are making improvements to our website and we may have moved, removed or renamed the page.’   

‘This is a new website – the page you’re looking for might have been removed or had its name changed.’

Which councils need to improve their custom 404s?

202 councils scored 8 to 9 out of ten and 68 scored 7 out of ten. 50 councils scored 7 out of ten. These councils are doing well, but have an opportunity to improve their position with a few tweaks.

28 councils scored 3 to 4 out of ten and they are currently ranked as poor and need to seriously review and improve their performance.

I would suggest that all councils need to get into the habit of periodically reviewing their custom 404s. Those councils scoring 8 to 10 on my review should find this a very quick task, but nevertheless I think it would be time well spent.

Councils scoring 3-7 on my review will have more to consider but it shouldn’t take very long to fix any issues. If any councils need help please get in contact and I will be happy to provide advice to help them to improve their performance of custom 404s at no charge. Y

Custom 404 error pages on council websites (UK and Ireland) – Research – 2026

You can view my research about custom 404 error pages on council websites below. A variety of charts and a search facility can be found on the directory by selecting the Extensions option. Please get in contact if you have any feedback or want to report any updates to the research.