Online, this refers to a method for automatically transferring a visitor from the requested resource to a relocated or different resource.
Redirects are commonly used when a website is moved to a new domain name, the URL structure of a site is changed (for instance when a site is moved from static HTML pages to a content management system) or a page is moved or replaced.
Common redirect methods include:
Meta refresh: An HTML meta tag that appears in the <head> of a page and redirects the visitor to a new page. The format is:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="10; url=http://example.com/">
which redirects the visitor to http://example.com/ after 10 seconds (any number may be used, the use of “0” results in an immediate redirect.
JavaScript redirect: A redirect using JavaScript in the format
<script type="text/javascript"> <!-- window.location = "http://example.com/" //--> </script>
The above code redirects the visitor to http://example.com/
301 Redirect: A redirect performed by the server (often accomplished through an entry in the .htaccess file) that returns a 301 status code to the browser indicating that the requested resource has moved to a new location and that the move is permanent.