Index page is 404 page?

"T.J." <no1 RemoveThis @home.invalid> wrote in message
news:d17ifo$bd2$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
 > I have just updated my hosting and now find that whenever
 > anything is put in after my domain name my index page is used
 > rather than a 404 page.
 > Is this normal behavior and can it cause any problems?

You can have anything you want as your "404" page... be it the default
standard that you see on most sites or a fancied up "Oops! We couldn't find
the page you are requesting!"

Rather that just use the default 404 page it sounds like your web host is
redirecting all 404 (page not found) errors to your home page.

The advantage of doing this (or having a custom 404 page) is that if a
search engine, or other website, links to a page on your site that you later
remove... rather than have all that traffic come to a dead end (the standard
404 page) they end up at your home page where they can go on to look for
different/additional content.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->