3 Ways to Redirect a User and Common Pitfalls

When I was thinking about this post, I thought it would be very short and straightforward. However, it looks like there are at least 3 different ways with pros and significant pitfalls.

In general, there are 3 ways you can make a redirect.

HTML meta

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; url = https://bit.ly/3okeOK4" />

JavaScript

<script type="text/javascript">
    window.location.href = "https://bit.ly/3okeOK4" 
</script>

Server-side redirects

# Apache
Redirect 301 / http://www.new-website.com
RedirectMatch 301 /blog(.*) http://www.new-website.com$1
Redirect 301 /page.html http://www.old-website/new-page.html

So if you'd like to know their differences and decide which one to use and when then I hope you enjoy this video.

Source code and references:

• HTML redirect example
• JavaScript redirect examples
• 301 & 302 redirect examples
• How to Redirect a Web Page
• http-equiv="refresh"