URL redirection: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:47, 2 November 2024

Revision as of 18:12, 5 January 2025

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{{Short description|Technique for making a Web page available under more than one URL address}}

{{for|URL redirection on Wikipedia|Wikipedia:Redirect}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}'''URL redirection''', also called '''URL forwarding''', is a [[World Wide Web]] technique for making a [[web page]] available under more than one [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]] address. When a [[web browser]] attempts to open a URL that has been redirected, a page with a different URL is opened. Similarly, ___domain redirection or ___domain forwarding is when all pages in a URL [[Domain name|___domain]] are redirected to a different ___domain, as when [https://www.wikipedia.com/ wikipedia.com] and [https://www.wikipedia.net/ wikipedia.net] are automatically redirected to [https://www.wikipedia.org/ wikipedia.org].

URL redirection is done for various reasons:

* for [[URL shortening]];

* to prevent [[link rot|broken links]] when web pages are moved;

* to allow multiple ___domain names belonging to the same owner to refer to a single [[website|web site]];

* to guide navigation into and out of a website;

* for privacy protection (such as redirecting [[YouTube]] and [[Twitter]] links to [[Invidious]] and [[Nitter]] respectively or to turn [[Accelerated Mobile Pages|AMP]] links into normal links); and

* for hostile purposes such as [[phishing]] attacks or malware distribution.

== Purposes ==