date: 2018-01-20
tags:
- programming
- html
- javascript
title: Reliably Redirecting With HTML
---
When redesigning my website and re-writing my static site generator
[Posty](https://github.com/nickpegg/posty), I wanted to refactor the URLs
for my blog posts but not leave anyone hanging when they had an old URL
bookmarked. Since my website could be hosted somewhere that I don't have
control over the webserver config, I had to figure out how to do this with
HTML.
---
My goals were:

* Surprise users as little as possible
* Don't tank my site's search engine ranking
* Reliably handle as many weirdo browsers as possible

After some research, it seemed like a Javascript redirect was the safest since
[at least GoogleBot passes PageRank to the destination page](https://www.branded3.com/blog/seo-javascript-redirects-evidence-pass-pagerank/).

So here's what I came up with:
{% raw %}
```
<html>
    <head>
        <!-- Try JavaScript first -->
        <script type="text/javascript">
            window.location = "{{ url }}";
        </script>

        <!-- If JavaScript is disabled or not supported, kick it old-school -->
        <noscript>
            <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url={{ url }}">
        </noscript>
    </head>
    <body>
        <!-- If their browser is super-old, just give them a link to click -->
        <p>
            This page has moved. If your browser hasn't redirected you already,
            <a href="{{ url }}">click here</a>.
        </p>
    </body>
</html>
```
{% endraw %}
