: "Thank you for posting. Please stand by while you are redirected." Needed? Thank you for posting. Please stand by while you are redirected. If you are not automatically redirected,

@BetL925

I always send a redirect in the response header with the proper HTTP status code (e.g. 301 or 302 - see www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html ), which results in an immediate redirect. I'm not aware of any good technical reasons why someone would display a "please wait while you're redirected page".

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@Bethany197

It also allows the back button to sort of work properly.

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@Sarah324

Are there any situations that absolutely require redirection like this, ultimately annoying the user, and what are the technical reasons behind them?


The most common intent (generally in the case of a request which creates a new record in a database, processes a payment transaction, etc) is the prevention of duplicate requests should the user hit the "Refresh" button and re-post the request.


Does redirection still have a place/need in modern (ajaxy) web development?


If you can get away with telling users who have Javascript disabled that their requests will be ignored or possibly mishandled (the "Do not click submit more than once!" message comes to mind) sure - but it's not a huge effort to support those quirky JS-disabled users and ensure that the billing department doesn't see the occasional double-billing complaint, so redirection of some sort is still implemented in many interfaces.


Why not just redirect instantly if a redirect is required?


The redirect should be issued instantly if the goal is to prevent multiple form submissions - in the case of timed redirects perhaps they're geared toward sluggish servers, they've failed to factor in a session-based lock, or they're trying to solve a more esoteric problem.

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@Dunderdale272

The main reason for doing this is that a record is made on the site that you have been redirected. The page could load Google Analytics, but the data is also going to be in the weblogs.

If you send a redirect using HTTP headers then the browser will go off to the other site without making any additional requests to the original site. Javascript-based tracking may catch these exits, but it gives the site owner better opportunities for tracking.

In some cases you might also want to provide a disclaimer to the user than they are being redirected. This is particularly important to webmasters working in regulated industries. If you don't work in a regulated industry like banking or pharmaceuticals you will not have much appreciation for these requirements.

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@Jamie184

First of all, not all browsers will redirect when given a Location header. Second, not all browsers will redirect with Javascript because it is disabled. Third, not all browsers will support the meta-refresh tags. Any of these cases is probably very rare so it probably won't matter. But even if it does, you can overlap all of these methods I think.

The way the PHPBB pages does it (waits for 5 seconds or something) is not needed at all. It should redirect immediately and if it doesn't, it will display the HTML page (which has meta-refresh and Javascript on it and text with a link) after sending the headers. There's almost no chance this page will actually get displayed by a regular browser if it's programmed properly.

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