Make a missing record return a real 404 instead of a blank page

A deleted product's URL still loads. It just loads empty.

IntermediateRead 4 minDoing: about an hour6 steps

▶ Start

What you'll have at the end

A route that calls notFound() and renders not-found.tsx with a genuine 404 status, checked in the browser's network tab

Before you start

You need

A dynamic route that already looks up one real record by its own id and renders it when found, but currently returns nothing once the lookup comes back empty.

Not covered

Redirecting a page that has genuinely moved to a new address, or designing what the not-found message itself should say; this only covers making the response's own status match what the screen already shows.

Leans on

6 steps

Where to go next

Give a page real search-engine metadata

once the route answers a real 404, give a route that does exist its own accurate title, description and share image instead of the layout's borrowed defaults.

Checked 25 Aug 2026

Part of the NextJS cookbook