Disable back button - well sort of

[dawso77]

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Can anyone advise on how i can stop users leaving my site via the route they came without totaly disabling the back button?

Example: someone comes via a 3rd party site to mine, they can have the ability to go back and forth on my site but if they press the back button to go back to the 3rd party site the browser will just reload my page.

I have seen this done before but am not sure how or what its called?

Any help would be great!

[pricethat]

To be honest you would probably just piss your visitors off even more than the original reason they wanted to leave. If they press the back button because they want to go back to the other site then there is a reason for it. Personally i can't stand sites that do that, its like the porn pop ups that when you close them another one pops up. At what point to people fail to understand that if i want to leave or close a window that is what i want to do, putting obstacles in my way only seeks to piss me off.

I would take a hesitant guess and suggest that might be the same for most internet users.

[drivetowin]

Yeah I totally agree with pricethat - I make a conscious effort never to return to sites that disable the back button - it is the one thing that really puts me off a site - I'd rather have pop ups then having a site that I cannot escape from.

[dawso77]

I hear what your sayin from a usability perspective, guess im just trying to piss of the cheeky tyke who keeps clickin back and fourth on my ppc ads....thought it would be good for a test to see if they would get bored!!

[pricethat]

Well if that was the sole intent then i fail to see how it would help you as if someone was determined to do that then they would just open your ads in a new browser window and close it when they are done. So they would not really be getting bored at all, probably faster than clicking the back button too.

If you are that worried about fraud clicks or something get some proper click tracking in place and at least you can forward evidence onto google/overture when you see someone doing it.

Far better than waisting your time pissing off the other 90% of genuine visitors with code that stops them from using their back button normally.