in reply to CPAN down again... (search.cpan.org)
For clarity, http://cpan.org is up, http://search.cpan.org is having problems, again. I raised the issue a few times and suggested that http://noc.perl.org/ be updated with a section for reporting issues, this is now live.
CPAN isn't the main perl website. That's http://www.perl.org, not is it the place to search for perl documentaiton, that's http://perldoc.perl.org. Your idea for updating the error pages seems reasonable, I suggest you raise it.
I've never had this issue with http://metacpan.org, http://mcpan.org is (I'm informed) a drop in replacement for the search syntax of http://search.cpan.org.
Update: sort of related - Proposal - Update shortcuts pointing to cpan.org to link to mcpan.org.