Sometimes visitors to your site my try navigating your site manually through the address bar of their browser. Doing this they may enter parts of your site that are off limits to them. When this happens they will get a 403 error message. To steer visitors in the right direction again, customize your 403 so it is helpful to them. The rules for creating a custom 403 page are the same as a 404 page. In fact if you go to my article on custom 404 pages, they are nearly identical.

Just like a custom 404 page, s custom 403 page adds professionalism and a thoughtful touch to your site. It shows you care about your visitors and their experience at your site. A well-designed 403 page also helps traffic, since visitors aren't left at a dead end.

To be as helpful as possible, a custom 403 page should include the same elements as a custom 404 page:

An apology needs to be short short and sincere. Do not waste their time with a wordy apology. Be sure not to imply that this is their fault. Even if it is, it is not worth it to blame your visitors. They may have tried to access this area of your site on accident.

Not everybody knows what a 403 is. Explain what has happened. Be careful not to use words like forbidden. This implies it is the visitor’s fault. Simply state exactly what has happened. On my custom 403 page I included reasons why this page will appear, but excluded the reason “You don't have permission to access foldername on this server”. Do not use tech speak to explain problems. I don’t even use the term 403.

An important advantage of a custom 403 page is getting visitors back to your site. You do not want to lose visitors. This can be accomplished by adding links back to your site. You can even use the same navigation as the rest of your site. I used text links on my custom 403 page, because I wanted the page to load fast and be as direct as possible. Do anything you can to get them back as quickly as possible. Some webmasters go so far as to include a site map, but I think that is a little overboard.

I include a search box for my site on my custom 403 page, just in case visitors aren't sure which page they are looking for. They can enter their search terms and a list of pages will appear as well as the probability of that page being the page they are looking for.

To date, I have not been contacted about a 403. I don’t really expect to be contacted anytime soon, either. It assumes that visitors will take time to tell you how to fix your site. However, I still include it. I want to know if they had a problem, so I can fix it right away, but for the most part, it is there to show I do care. After all, I want them to have a good experience to my site.

In order to implement a custom 403 message. See my article on managing indexes. Also contact your hosting company to find out how you can customize your error messages. This will vary from company to comapny.

Hide custom 403 pages from spiders. To do this, create a robots.txt file in the directory that your domain is mapped to. This is what should be in it:

You can also add this Meta tag to all 403 files:

just like a custom 404 page, look at a custom 403 page as a requirement for a site, not just an added luxury. This will help you retain traffic. It is also a requirement for usability. It is a poor design habit not to give your visitors a way out if they encounter problems. Remember to keep your apology short and explanations clear. Give visitors a way back to your site by including navigation and a search field. Last but not least, give visitors an option to contact you.