You want to connect to a site you have bookmarked. But instead you get a 404 messages?

Answer 1

Typically a 404 message means that the site no longer exists or has changed its internet address (url). There are three ways that you might be able to find that site if you visited before and have bookmarked it.

If search results from a Google search doesn't work because the link gives you that 404 Error message, see if you can pull up a "cached" version of the link/website. Caching is a way of capturing a website location at a specific moment in time if a lot of time hasn't passed by. Often, you can click on a little down arrow next to the link and it will give you the option to select the cached site. If not, you might wish to find instructions on how to accessed cached websites and follow those instructions.

A second way is to use your internet history. If you haven't deleted your browsing history, your browser stores all the websites you have visited. Open up your "history" in your internet homepage. You should be able to do a search and locate the website link. Typically, the link will take you to the website as it existed at the point in time you visited it. Sometimes this method works and sometimes it doesnt.

Another option is the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive site. Wayback Machine is a mechanism that takes pictures of websites at periodic points of time if someone has entered it into their database.

You want to copy your website link from your bookmark. When you pull up the Wayback Machine, you need to paste the web address into the appropiate window. If the website was saved there, particularly if it was saved more than one time, it allows you to select which date you want. Once you've selected the date, you can click on the link and it will take you to an archived version of the website. If done correctly, you should be able to root around all over the website as you used to know it.