Is the REFERER set if you redirect to a new web page using location.href =?

Question

If you redirect a user to a new web page using the javascript location.href = <url>, what REFERER header does the destination web server see?

Answer 1

it sees the page it came from, just like clicking on a link.

To test this from any page, redirect to a phpinfo() page or any other page that echos headers, for example:

window.location='http://hosting.iptcom.net/phpinfo.php';

(page pulled from random google search)

Answer 2

With some exceptions, the header sent is of the page with the redirect on it, not the referrer of the page that did the redirect. This is in contrast to server-side redirects, which preserve the original referrer.

So, if a visitor goes from A.html to B.html, and B.html triggers a location.href redirect to C.html, the web server will see B.html as the referrer. (If you did the redirect from B.html to C.html on the serverside, A.html would be the referrer for C.html.)

Older versions of Internet Explorer will send a blank header, as will (as always) redirects from HTTPS to HTTP.

Answer 3

Most browsers will pass a HTTP_REFFERER with location.href, but IE in some cases does not.

If the refferers are really important to you, then you could do this:

function goTo(url) {
 var a = document.createElement("a");
 if(!a.click) { //Only IE has .click so if it doesnt exist use the simple method where the refferer is passed on other browsers.
  location.href = url;
  return;
 }
 a.setAttribute("href", url);
 a.style.display = "none";
 (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(a);
 a.click();
}