Best way to handle 404 error with redirect to homepage
Try something like this:
<?php header("HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found"); echo '<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0;url=http://www.mysite.com/index.php?code=404" /> </head><body></body> </html>';?>I'm using a meta redirect because otherwise you get an error that headers have already been sent.
I tested this on localhost using Fiddler, and got a proper 404 response, and then was correctly redirected to a different page successfully.
Another suggestion I would advise modifying the .htaccess to handle the 404.
adding something like :
ErrorDocument 404 /404.phpto your .htaccess will handle things very nicely for you.
You can place the 404 error template anywhere you want. For example you could place all error messages in a folder called 'errors'
ErrorDocument 404 /errors/404.phpHandles things nicely and other error messages of course.