Incorrect Page Address

The server statistics counter 'AWSTATS' provides a section called;
Required but not found URLs (HTTP code 404).

It's a list of page requests that returned a 404 code [not found] to the computer browser requesting that page. So far this month, the list contains 725 URLs. Many of the URLs are valid, so I figure it was hit while the server was off-line. However some page addresses are not valid.

Somebody in a news group posting links to a page on my site, but gets part of the address wrong. Another web site may get the address wrong.

Anyway, when I see a request for a wrong page address, I generate a page with that address to capture the incoming request. That way the person requesting the page sees a file alerting them to the correct address. Unfortunately some page requests can't be decoded to a live address.

Currently there are 120 html files on the server to capture incoming incorrect page addresses. Normally the pages don't see a lot of traffic once the news group posting falls off the main front page. But those postings are out there forever. All the holding pages are identical except the page address, title and the new link, if it's provided.

There also happen to be a lot of page requests with characters that don't decode well, so I let some go. Not going to load a .html.exe file to the server.

I added two more pages tonight, not going to list them ~ no reason to reinforce an incorrect page address.