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What data does a 404 error page provide?

A lot of people seem to think that a 404 page is a dead end street. It's not, there's a whole lot of data that can help you find the content your visitor was looking for. Let's start with the URL: it contains something very useful. All the text that's there after the slash of your domain should be pointing you to what it is the person was looking for.

Great and detailed tutorial on how-to create better 404 pages for wordpress

Many times in your life you have probably seen these petrifying 404 error pages which meant nothing but that you’ve lost your way surfing the web in your pursuance of certain objectives. The 404 error declares that the user’s request was able to communicate with the server, but the server couldn’t find what was requested. And that is probably the only useful information you would find reaching the “zero between fours” dead-end default pages.

Serving the right 404 error page is essential for a successful website.
In my opinion these points are important as well:

1. send the right headers (don't send a 404 state if you moved the page)
2. offer a site search on your 404 error (google offers a nice snippet)
3. Tell the user that something is wrong