The Redirect

A redirect is when you click on the url of a site but the site takes you two another site.  There are three reasons for using a redirect but only one valid reason.  They are: site url change, advertising and malicious or illegal behaviour.  If a website or blog has had an url in use (eg. myurlname.blogspot.com) and they change domain to their own domain (eg.  myurlname.com) then a redirect to the new url is appropriate.  The redirect can be announced on the old blog url with a statement to the effect that after such and such a date the old url will be redirected to the new url and please update your bookmarks.

In an effort to make money online some bloggers are resorting to using redirects forcing their readers to view an advertisement.  This is extremely annoying and incredibly rude.  It is against the TOS of advertising networks like Adgitize, CMFAds, Project Wonderful, and Adsense.  Using a redirect for advertising is a good way to have any of these accounts cancelled.  It is a sure fire way to lose readers as well.  Readers do not like redirects without a valid reason and forcing them to view an ad is not a valid reason.

The sad reality is some bloggers have redirects to malicious content.  This can include viruses, trojans,
pornographic content, malware, spyware and that type of thing.  This is against the AUP and TOS of most ISPs and blog hosting sites.  If a blog is resorting to this type of behaviour whether intentional or not it should be reported to the blog hosting site as well as the blogger's ISP.  There is no room for this type of behaviour in the blogosphere!

Garden Gnome
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