How To Let React Router Respond With 404 Status Code

React Router is a powerful tool for handling navigation in your React applications. One important aspect that often comes up is how to handle routes that don't match any existing route - in other words, handling 404 errors gracefully. In this article, I'll guide you through how to let React Router respond with a 404 status code, ensuring a smooth user experience even for unexpected routes.

When a user accesses a route that doesn't exist in your application, it's crucial to provide feedback that the requested page is not available. By responding with a 404 status code, you communicate to both users and search engines that the requested resource was not found. This can help in improving user experience and SEO for your application.

To achieve this functionality in your React application using React Router, you can make use of the Switch component provided by React Router. The Switch component is used to render the first child Route or Redirect that matches the current location. By placing a Route component with no path specified at the end of your routes within a Switch, you can catch all unmatched routes and handle them as 404 errors.

Let's walk through the steps to implement this in your React application:

1. Import the necessary components from React Router:

import { Switch, Route } from 'react-router-dom';

2. Update your existing routes within a Switch component:

{/* Your existing routes */}
   
   
   {/* Other routes in your application */}
   
   {/* Catch all unmatched routes */}

3. Create a NotFound component to handle the 404 error:

const NotFound = () => {
    return (
        <div>
            <h1>404 - Not Found</h1>
            <p>Sorry, the page you are looking for does not exist.</p>
        </div>
    );
};

By adding a Route component without a path specified at the end of your routes, React Router will render the NotFound component when none of the other routes match the current location. This allows you to provide a custom error page informing users that the requested page is not found.

In addition to rendering a custom error page, you can also set the HTTP status code to 404 when the NotFound component is displayed. This can be done by using the staticContext property available on the Route component. By accessing the staticContext property and setting the status property, you can ensure that the server responds with a 404 status code for unmatched routes.

Implementing a clean and user-friendly way to handle 404 errors in your React application is essential for providing a seamless user experience. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily let React Router respond with a 404 status code and enhance the error handling capability of your application.