Heavy use of custom 404

[MustangPriMe]

I'm going to be working on a content management system which will serve the content from a database 'on-the-fly'.

Most of the content will therefore come from a single ASP page, but

http://domain/content.asp?PageId=43

isn't very people or google friendly, so I'm planning to make heavy use of a custom 404 page to serve the content.

I plan to have a virtual site structure where, for example,

http://domain/services/proofreading.htm

doesn't actually exist on the server, but instead ends up going to the custom 404 page which looks up the requested URL in the content database, and serves up the appropriate page.

This will obviously mean that IIS will effectively be handling every page request as a 404 error (although obviously handled correctly so that's not what the client ends up with).

Are there any drawbacks, problems or risks in taking this approach of relying so heavily on custom error handling?

Any comments welcome,
Thanks
Paul

 

[ChrisHirst]

Nope I have two site where I coded exactly the same thing.
Running a scripts on the 404 page is exactly the same as running a script on any other page.

I have logged the msnbots running a full deep crawl, with a page access every 3 seconds for about 20 mins, with no ill effects.


BTW changing to static looking URLs does NOT make anything "google friendly"

Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
Woo Hoo! the cobblers kids get new shoes.
People Counting Systems

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

 

[MustangPriMe]

That's reassuring to know, thanks.

The google friendly comment is also noted. Perhaps I should have termed it as "user and internal-management friendly" ;-)

Thanks
Paul