Is the 404 page the same as “well this is embarrasing” page?

Question

I'm not sure if wordpress 3 upgraded itself from displaying 404 pages to having a "well, this is embarrassing" text in pages that aren't there, but I would like to know whether the tutorials that say "fix your 404 pages" would fix my "well this is embarrassing" page as well.

Thanks

EDIT: Let's say it's the latest twenty-eleven theme.

Answer 1

This all depends on your theme. Most themes includes a 404.php template to display a "well this is embarrassing" page or an index of previous posts.

For example:

• My consulting site shows an index: http://jumping-duck.com/does-not-exist
• One of my client sites shows a basic "404 not found" error: http://votebode.com/does-not-exist

They're both running the latest version of WordPress (3.3.2 as of this answer). Both sites define their own 404 behavior through a themed 404.php template.

Answer 2

If you're using Twenty Eleven, you could open 404.php - you would see this code in there: <h1 class="entry-title"><?php _e( 'This is somewhat embarrassing, isn&rsquo;t it?', 'twentyeleven' ); ?></h1>

You can modify this 404 page to show and say whatever you want - it will be loaded every time someone tries to go to a URL that WP doesn't think exists.

The long and short is, a 404 page and a 'well, this is embarrassing' page are the exact same thing - a page being served up by the 404.php template.