Redirect website after specified amount of time

Question

What do I have to do to have a function on a website where it says it will redirect you to the site in 3 seconds or so?

possible duplicate of [How can i redirect to a page (home) via another page(success page) where some success message is to be displayed?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2949301/how-can-i-redirect-to-a-page-home-via-another-pagesuccess-page-where-some-suc) — kennytm, Jul 20 '10 at 16:15
I'm just curious, why would you ever want to do that? Everytime I visited such page, I'd rather have been directed in 0 seconds. — allesklar, Jul 21 '10 at 11:01
@allesklar sorry for the late reply. I'm in development of a site, and I wanted to see if there was an easier to switch from code editor to web browser without hitting refresh everytime. — codedude, Aug 16 '10 at 21:59
This [JS redirect](http://insider.zone/tools/client-side-url-redirect-generator/) generator will help you to easily create delayed redirect snippets. It has a noscript and seo support, plus has an IE 8 - and lower - fix to pass the http referer! — Patartics Milán, Sep 03 '15 at 15:27
@allesklar one example to use this. If you change your domain and want everyone to be redirected to the new domain in the first month (but letting them know the old domain will be removed after a month or so). Because even if you send and email there's always someonte who forget and go to the old domain. — patricia, Feb 01 '16 at 15:39
Possible duplicate of [How can i redirect to a page (home) via another page(success page) where some success message is to be displayed?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2949301/how-can-i-redirect-to-a-page-home-via-another-pagesuccess-page-where-some-su) — Teja Bhagavan Kollepara, Jun 29 '17 at 11:32

score 254 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 20 '10 at 16:14

254

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=http://www.google.com/" />

answered Jul 20 '10 at 16:14

Darin Dimitrov

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Or just redirect to the root if you have multiple sites using – DJSampat May 16 '19 at 05:15
10

The W3C recommends this tag not be used:https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#meta-element – huseyin39 Nov 13 '19 at 22:14
2

then what to use instead? – John Smith Aug 19 '22 at 22:31
1

that means for time of 3 seconds – naty1982 Mar 16 '23 at 07:10
2

@JohnSmith - W3C recommends that you should not guess how long a user needs to read a comment, and instead allow the user to perform the redirect instead. However the meta refresh tag is still the simplest method prevent the continued display of an page which might quickly become out of date, all other methods require the use of Javascript in some form. – Andy Henson May 29 '23 at 11:19

LukeH · Answer 2 · 2010-07-20T16:20:30.923

You're probably looking for the meta refresh tag:

<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=http://www.somewhere.com/" />
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>Redirecting in 3 seconds...</h1>
    </body>
</html>

Note that use of meta refresh is deprecated and frowned upon these days, but sometimes it's the only viable option (for example, if you're unable to do server-side generation of HTTP redirect headers and/or you need to support non-JavaScript clients etc).

score 72 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 31 '17 at 18:54

72

If you want greater control you can use javascript rather than use the meta tag. This would allow you to have a visual of some kind, e.g. a countdown.

Here is a very basic approach using setTimeout()

<html>
    <body>
    <p>You will be redirected in 3 seconds</p>
    <script>
        var timer = setTimeout(function() {
            window.location='http://example.com'
        }, 3000);
    </script>
</body>
</html>

edited Jan 31 '17 at 18:54

chaptuck

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answered Jul 20 '10 at 16:20

mbrevoort

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This would be the way to go if you want the text to dynamically count down to 0 prior to the redirect. Use a 1 second timer, where the timer function updates the HTML text and then start a new 1 second timer, until 3 seconds have elapsed, then do the redirect. – Remy Lebeau Jul 20 '10 at 19:41

noamtm · Answer 4 · 2018-11-25T19:26:30.173

32

Here's a complete (yet simple) example of redirecting after X seconds, while updating a counter div:

<html>
<body>
    <div id="counter">5</div>
    <script>
        setInterval(function() {
            var div = document.querySelector("#counter");
            var count = div.textContent * 1 - 1;
            div.textContent = count;
            if (count <= 0) {
                window.location.replace("https://example.com");
            }
        }, 1000);
    </script>
</body>
</html>

The initial content of the counter div is the number of seconds to wait.

edited Nov 25 '18 at 19:26

answered Jul 03 '16 at 08:47

noamtm

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This didn't work until I replaced `location.href="https://example.com";` with `window.location='https://example.com'` – NateH06 Jul 29 '17 at 15:12
1

Might be better to use `window.location.replace("http://example.com");` for the reasons discussed here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/506004 The change would provide this answer more generality. – Psyche May 09 '18 at 20:39
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If the redirect target is slow to respond (more than 1 sec) then `window.location.replace()` is called multiple time and the X second `count` can go negative. I modified two lines : `div.textContent = ((count < 0) ? 0 : count);` and `if (count == 0) {`. – ForguesR Nov 19 '21 at 19:46

score 14 · Answer 5 · edited Nov 25 '18 at 19:27

14

The simplest way is using HTML META tag like this:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3;url=http://example.com/" />

Wikipedia

edited Nov 25 '18 at 19:27

noamtm

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answered Jul 20 '10 at 16:15

Ehsan

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score 4 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 02 '12 at 19:13

Place the following HTML redirect code between the and tags of your HTML code.

<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="3; url=http://www.yourdomain.com/index.html">

The above HTML redirect code will redirect your visitors to another web page instantly. The content="3; may be changed to the number of seconds you want the browser to wait before redirecting. 4, 5, 8, 10 or 15 seconds, etc.

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 21 '15 at 19:04

1

Use this simple javascript code to redirect page to another page using specific interval of time...

Please add this code into your web site page, which is you want to redirect :

<script type="text/javascript">
(function(){
   setTimeout(function(){
     window.location="http://brightwaay.com/";
   },3000); /* 1000 = 1 second*/
})();
</script>

answered Sep 21 '15 at 19:04

Sunny S.M

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`` is a better option as it is simpler and works without JavaScript support. – Edward Apr 06 '16 at 18:48
you are right bro... but its depends upon situation.. sometime we need to redirect on specific event for that JS is the best option. – Sunny S.M Apr 07 '16 at 07:06
I get what you mean, "Sunny S.M". Although meta tags should be used almost always, there could be specific scenarios like yours where JavaScript would be the only option. – Edward Apr 07 '16 at 10:42

Redirect website after specified amount of time

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