A brief history of the imported term “404 error”: “The page you are looking for does not exist”

Editor's note: "404 error" is a web page error code, which means that the web page does not exist. This is common knowledge that everyone knows now, but its historical origin is full of mystery. Some people say that in the past, the servers of the entire Internet were installed in a room called 404 somewhere in Europe. If you want to access network content, you have to submit a request to this room. If it cannot be found, you will be prompted with "404 not found".

Whether this legend is true or not, you will know after reading our article "Page Not Found: A Brief History of the 404 Error". In fact, for Chinese netizens, the 404 error is a byproduct of the Internet and is an imported product.

This also means that, like the entire Chinese Internet world, the 404 error has also been branded as China since its first day of existence. In China, the 404 error has a more extended meaning. It may be that the webpage does not exist, it may be because the content is illegal, or it may be because the content creator has taken the initiative to delete it.

However, both in China and abroad, at least one consensus has been reached: "Network technology is created by humans, controlled by humans, and is not completely reliable." Original link: Page Not Found: A Brief History of the 404 Error, the compiler has made some deletions and edits.

The infamous 404 error "Not Found" is not entirely slanderous. It is called "the last page of the Internet". There are so many things that mock it, and you can even see 404 on cartoons and T-shirts. Who would have thought that "not found", an adjective used to mock nerds, has now become a fact we have to face every day.

There's something borderline appealing about 404 errors, something almost universal and inherent: the genuine disappointment that comes with an unexpected problem. But it's also a reminder that web technology, created by humans and controlled by humans, isn't entirely reliable.

The Internet is not a machine that always works well. It is more like an "earthly paradise" constructed by one-way hypertext (a painting by the 15th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, which depicts the three images of the Garden of Eden, the human world, and Hell in Christianity, reflecting the different scenes of people from heaven to hell). Its components will also have broken links, damaged image files, and incomplete information.

Soon after the birth of the Internet, wrong URL access also appeared. While people enjoy the knowledge brought by the Internet, they also have to endure the pain brought by 404 errors. In the early 21st century, a group of people tried to study the source of 404 errors.

Some people believe that the 404 error is named after Room 404 of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland, where Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Internet, worked, and therefore placed the first server of the Internet era in Room 404. If you want to access network content, you have to submit a request to this room, and if it is not found, you will be prompted with "404 not found".

Robert Cailliau, the creator of the hypertext structure (the basic architecture of the Internet) and also the inventor of the Internet, felt helpless about this. He believed that the legend about the origin of the 404 error was pure nonsense, and told us the real origin of the 404 error.

Although there will always be people who visit the wrong web address, this error itself will not affect the development of the Internet too much, but in the early days of the Internet, it actually caused a lot of resource waste. Kallio said, "When you write code for a new system, you can't waste too much time detecting requests for wrong address access. Otherwise, the server will have to remember too much information and waste too many resources." "Modern geeks don't know what it feels like to program with 64K memory."

In order to avoid accessing the wrong address, programmers came up with a very simple method - specifying a numeric range for the error category. Among them, the 404 error is set by programmers to let users know where they are wrong when they have an error connecting to the network. "When the user's error type is marked as 404, it means that the webpage does not exist." said Cario.

When asked what he thought of the so-called 404 room legend, Cario said: "I didn't expect people to have such ideas about the origin of 404 at all. Maybe people prefer some irrational and mysterious stories, which is quite common in human beings... When people's influence was small and information spread slowly, these irrational traits were relatively innocent. But now, due to the existence of the Internet, these characteristics have acquired a dangerous power."

Regardless, 404 will always exist in the online world. Even Hillary Clinton's campaign website has a 404 situation. However, Hillary's website handles it in a playful way. The website will display a photo of her trying and failing to swipe her bus card, and add "oh, me" to imply that the webpage does not exist.

In addition, 404 has now become a tool for companies to convey their brand image. For example, when Tumblr users visit a non-existent webpage, Tumblr cheekily says "There's nothing here... unless you're looking for this error page, if so, congratulations! You found it." Pixar's 404 page reads: "Oh... don't cry. It's just a 404 error!" and is accompanied by an illustration of a sad person.