How to configure friendly error pages in IIS 6 (Windows 2003)

Friendly error pages in IIS are configured using the IIS Manager. For IIS 6, open the IIS Manager, select a site and open the Properties window. Select the Custom Errors tab and select a file for each specifc HTTP error you which to configure.

Redirecting users to Smartsite items

For some common error pages like a 404 (File not found), you can redirect the user to a Smartsite item. You can do this by setting the 404 error page of IIS to the path "/smartsite.net?id=HTTP404&error=" and create an item with the code HTTP404. This way you can show the user a friendly page that can offer some extras like a search box or sitemap. Make sure that you never redirect a HTTP 500 (Internal server error) error back to Smartsite. HTTP 500 responses are often sent to the client if there is a problem in Smartsite. Redirecting these users back to Smartsite can lead to recursion and eventually no proper error page for the site visitor.