Timing your splash page
Step 1
Paste the following code between the <HEAD> tags of your page:
<META
http-equiv="refresh" content="10; URL=index.html">
Step 2
Play with the timing to suit your needs. Our sample code sets the page to move on to the
next URL in 10 seconds (that's the 10
in the code), but only because that seems like an appropriate amount of time. Depending on
what's on the page, you can set the timing interval to anything you want. Just make sure
that people visiting your site have enough time to read through any text. There's nothing
more annoying than going to a page, starting to read what's there, and being forcefully
thrust to another page before you've finished.
One problem with using meta refresh is that the clock starts ticking when the page starts loading. If a user is on a slow connection or there's congestion between their machine and your server, the page could refresh before fully loading. You can get around this by foregoing the <META> tag and instead place the following attribute in your <BODY> tag:
onload=setTimeout("location.href='index.html'",10000)
The onload event handler
activates after the page has finished loading. Unlike meta refresh, onLoad takes its timing in
milliseconds (10000) instead
of seconds (10). Remember
that this method doesn't work for non-JavaScript browsers; for those users, consider
including meta refresh with a longer timeout. And you should always provide a link to the
refresh page, both as a backup and a consideration. One more thing. Your server probably
has a default name for the first page it serves when someone browses your Web directory,
such as index.html or homepage.html. If you put up a temporary splash page, you have to
give the splash page the default name and rename your home page something else. Make sure
you double-check the links to your home page when you set up a splash page and when you
take it down.