# What causes a webpage that wont let you back arrow out?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 12, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660 "2010-02-12T04:16:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/1 "2010-02-12T04:16:17Z")
Im sure you’re run into one. You hit back arrow and you cant back out of the page.You just get click click and it reloads the same page. Sometimes if you furiously click back arrow you can escape. What is being done on the page to cause this?
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/2 "2010-02-12T04:21:06Z")
Usually, the cause is that you landed on a page which did a meta-refresh and loaded a second page, with a timeout of zero seconds.
Newer browsers are usually smarter about this and treat a zero-second meta refresh as if it were a true redirect, and allow you to hit the back arrow successfully.
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/3 "2010-02-12T04:21:56Z")
Web pages can be designed with a redirect: you type in the address of one page, and it contains a coded command to shuffle you off to a different one. When you press the back arrow/backspace (whatever your browser uses), it will return you to the page with the redirect command, which will promptly return you to the page you were already on.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/4 "2010-02-12T04:41:07Z")
It’s a major, MAJOR problem with my library patrons and job applications, which are usually poorly written awful web pages to begin with. Add in “back button doesn’t work right” and you’ve given me a very, very bad day.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/5 "2010-02-12T05:46:53Z")
There should be a little downward pointing arrow by your back arrow. Click on that and it should give you a brief menu of recently visited pages. Then (if you have not tried the regular back arrow too many times already) you can choose the page you actually want to go back to instead of the one that keeps redirecting you back to where you are stuck.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/6 "2010-02-12T05:47:47Z")
Can also happen on web pages which use frames. (But nobody sensible uses them anymore.)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2010, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-causes-a-webpage-that-wont-let-you-back-arrow-out/528660/7 "2010-02-12T13:28:53Z")
There are also javascripts to disable the back arrow.