A "good" 404 page.

Lets define that. A 404 is encountered when a webpage cannot be found under a particular site. We have all seen the remnants of the code red and nimda virii with hits on our error logs for some_silly_windows.dll

A "good" 404 page IMHO should be a php/shtml file that is able to record the users browser, ip and time of error and present the user with a choice of a) go to the sites homepage and try to locate what they are looking for or b) be directed to a form they can fill in detailing what they tried to find with the parameters (browser, time, page) already passed to the script and the results emailed to the webmaster.

If you are getting hits related to bots/virii then they are not going to click the links to your homepage or fill in a form detailing the problem.

Some people can't/won't be bothered to investigate 404's but oft times they can be a source of keywords a person uses to search for a site in your marketing niche.

I for one would rather know what the searcher was actually looking for when they hit my site.

A "bad" 404 just says page not found.

Thoughts?

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