Patent ID: 7325045

Claim:
A system for handling page request errors, comprising: an error processing server; and a client component that runs on a user computing device in association with or as part of a browser program and communicates with the error processing server over a computer network; wherein the client component is responsive to detection of the unavailability of a target web page requested by the browser program by sending a request to the error processing server, and the error processing server is responsive to the request by using an address of the target web page to select an alternate object to be displayed by the browser program in place of the requested target web page, wherein the error processing server is capable of selecting the alternate object according to a hierarchy of alternate object types such that selection priority is given to a first type of alternate object over at least a second type of alternate object, said hierarchy specified by a user of the user computing device, and specifying selection priorities for at least the following types of alternate objects: (a) a substitute object which is an object previously determined to have visible content that is substantially identical to visible content of the target web pages (b) a cached version of the target web page, and (c) a non-cached web page that is related to the target web page but is not a substitute object; whereby the system enables an alternate object that is associated with the requested web page to be presented to the user when the requested web page is unavailable.