All Collections
Thrive Theme Builder
Templates & Typography
404 Page Templates in Thrive Theme Builder
404 Page Templates in Thrive Theme Builder

Adding and customizing a 404 page template in Thrive Theme Builder.

Thrive Themes avatar
Written by Thrive Themes
Updated over a week ago

As you might have guessed already, “404 Page Templates” are specifically suited to fit your 404 page. Such a page is displayed if the visitors of your website try to access a page/post that is no longer available (either because the content was removed/deleted, or because the outgoing link/the URL to it was mistyped).

In such cases, a “404-Not Found” error is sent to the servers and the 404 Page is displayed for the visitors automatically.

Your Thrive Theme Builder theme comes with a default “404 Page Template”. This template, along with its content, will automatically be considered your 404 page, so it will be displayed when a “404 -Not Found” error occurs on your website.

You can easily edit/customize this default “404 Page Template”, or even create new “404 Page Templates” and use those if you wish. Here is how you can do these:

Customize the default “404 Page Template”.

In order to customize the default “404 Page Template” you first need to access the “Templates” section of your Thrive Theme Builder dashboard.

Access the Templates section

In your WordPress admin dashboard, hover over the Thrive Dashboard item of the left side menu, and click on “Thrive Theme Builder”, from the sub-menu that opens:

This will open the Thrive Theme Builder dashboard. If you have already completed the Site Wizard, then you will be taken to the “Templates” section directly.

If not, then look for the “Templates” section, from the left side, and click on it to open it:

When you access the “Templates” section, you will see the Core Templates displayed.

Look for the “Page Template” with the “Default Error 404” label among them (if you can’t see it, then use the drop-down as described in this article, to view the available Page Templates and find the default “404 Page Template” among them):

Edit the default 404 Page template

After you have found the default template hover over it, and click on the “Edit” button that appears:

The Thrive Theme Builder editor will open with the default “404 Page template”, and you can start editing/customizing the template as you like. If you need details on how to edit the template, check out this tutorial.

Customize the design & the content

You can customize each part of this template here in the Thrive Theme Builder editor. This means that, unlike the other templates, when you edit this default “404 Page Template” you have the possibility to edit its design, as well as its content, at the same time with the Thrive Theme Builder editor.

For any regular template, you would have to switch to Thrive Architect, in order to be able to customize the content of the template.

Here you can see the “Switch to Thrive Architect” option is not available in the right sidebar, because you do not need it in this case.

Therefore, you should customize this default “404 Page Template” so that it looks exactly the way you want it to, and has the unique content you want it to have.

You can add new elements (images for example) to it, using the plus sign from the right sidebar:

Moreover, as previously mentioned, you can also customize the content by changing the existing elements that have default content on the template.

To customize any of the elements, first, you need to click on them, in order to select them, and then use the options of the element, that appear in the left sidebar, to go on with the customization.

For instance, you can modify the default texts, by clicking on them, deleting them, and then replacing them with your own texts.

Furthermore, you can also change the default image, if you want, with an image of your own, by clicking on it, and then using the “Replace Image” option from the left sidebar:

When it comes to the design of the template, you can also use the “Central Style Panel”, the second option (brush icon) from the right sidebar, to quickly and easily personalize the colors on the template:

If you need details on how to use this panel, check out this article.

Save the changes & preview the template

After you have finished customizing the template and its content, and you are happy with how it looks, you should make sure to save the changes you have made on it.

Then, you can also preview it, to see how it will look like for the visitors of your website.

Save

To save the changes/customizations, all you need to do is to click on the “Save Work” button from the bottom-left part of the editor:

Once the changes are saved, your customized default “404 Page Template” will be ready, and in case a visitor from your website will get the “404 - Not Found” server error, this is the template that will be displayed for him/her automatically.

Preview

Again, with regular templates, you have the option of using the “Content Drop-down” of the editor, in order to see how your template would look like when applied to pages/posts with different content.

However, since in the case of the “404 Page Template” you have the option of editing the content right here, and because there is only one “404 Page” for your website, you do not need the “Content Drop-down” here. This is why it is unavailable when you edit a “404 Page Template”.

All you need here is the “Preview” button, in order to preview the template and the page it is automatically applied to.

Click on the “Preview” button from the bottom-middle part of the editor:

This will open the template in a different tab and you can preview it, see how it will look for the visitors of your website.

Note: In the case of regular templates, you have to apply the template to one of your pages, in order to use it.

However, the case of “404 Page Templates” is different. You do not need to create a separate page in your WordPress admin dashboard to be your 404 Page, and you do not have to apply the “404 Page Template” to it.

Once you have a “404 Page Template”, it will automatically be displayed (along with the content you create for it in the Thrive Theme Builder editor), without you having to add a separate page for this and apply the template to it.

How to check if the “404 Page Template” works

If you want to check how the “404 Page Template” works, try mistyping the link to one of your posts or pages in your browser.

For example, if the link to your page looks like this: https://examplewebsite.com/about-us/

Try mistyping one of the words, like this:

When you try to access the incorrect/mistyped link of the page/post from your website, you will see that the “404 Page Template” and its content that you have customized, will be displayed automatically.

Add a new “404 Page Template”

If you do not want to work on the default “404 Page Template” directly, you also have the option to add a new “404 Page Template” and customize that one.

You can do this by accessing the “Templates” section of the Thrive Theme Builder dashboard, as described above, and then clicking on the “Add New” button from the upper-right part:

This will open a pop-up window where you can set up and add the “404 Page Template":

Before adding a new template, you will have to define a few aspects for it in this pop-up, as follows:

Add a name

First, add a name to your new template in the field under “New Template Name”:

Choose Type

Then, you will have to select a type for your template in the “Single or List?” section. You can choose between creating a “Single” type or a “List” type of template.

Since in this case, you want to create a “404 Page Template”, you should click on the “Single” option here to select it (or leave it selected if it was selected already):

Choose Content Type

The next step is to select a content type for the new template. Click on the current type from the “Choose Content Type” section, in order to open the drop-down with the options:

In the drop-down that opens, make sure you click on the “404 Page”, in order to select this content type for your new “404 Page Template”:

Start from Scratch

The next thing you can do here is to decide if you want to build the design for this template from scratch:

Choose Template

Or, if you want, you can also use a predefined template, from the template library:

This will open the library with all the available templates:

You can use the filtering options from the left-hand side of the screen to browse through all the available designs:

When you are done with defining the design, your new “404 Page Template” will be created and added to your “Page Templates”.

Customize the new “404 Page Template”

In order to customize the newly created “404 Page Template” you will have to edit it. Look for it among the “Page Templates”, in the “Templates” section (use the drop-down as described in this article, if necessary):

When you have found the new “404 Page Template”, hover over it and click on the “Edit” option that appeared:

Then, the Thrive Theme Builder editor will open and you will be able to customize the new “404 Page Template”. Customizing this newly created template works exactly the same way as customizing the default “404 Page Template”, as described above.

You can customize the design as well as the content here. Edit the already existing elements of the template, add new ones if you wish, and make sure the template looks just the way you want it.

Furthermore, you can save and preview this template with the "Save Work" and "Preview" buttons, after you have finished with the customization, also the same way as previously detailed for the default “404 Page Template”.

Therefore, the new “404 Page Template” can be edited exactly like the default “404 Page Template”, the only difference is that this template will not be used automatically, since it is not set as the default one.

Use the new template - set it as default

If you like the new “404 Page Template” that you have created and customized, you can set it to be used instead of the default “404 Page Template”.

In order to do this, go back to the “Templates” section and look for the new “404 Page Template” again, among the “Page Templates”. When you have found it, click on the “More” option (three dots icon) from its lower right side:

This will open the little pop-up with the "Managing Options". Click on the “Set as default” option from them:

After you do that, this new “404 Page Template” will be set as the default “404 Template”, and it will be displayed for the visitors every time a “404-Not Found” error will occur on your website.

These were the ways in which you can customize, add and use “404 Page Templates”.

If you want to get even more familiar with Thrive Theme Builder, for instance, see how you can customize “Homepage Templates”, or check out how to use various elements, check out our knowledge base section here.

Hopefully, this article was useful for you. If so, please reward it with a smile below :)

Did this answer your question?