Summary: Occasionally 'Back' won't work, and will simply land you back where you were, effectively doing nothing. There are reasons, and there workarounds.
Why is it on some web pages I can go 'back' to previous web pages as fast as I can click the mouse. On others I have to click 'back' 3 or 4 times, single or double click, and wait sometimes 15 seconds?
•
I feel your pain. You hit back, it churns for a bit ... maybe even displays a thing or two ... and then returns you to the page you started with, without going "back" at all. If you time it right, perhaps you can hit back more than once to get where you're going. Or not.
The problem is I also feel the pain of the web site developer that caused this to happen. Sometimes it can't be avoided.
And it is a function of the website's design.
•
Normally when you click a link on page "A" that lands you on page "B", you rightfully expect that when you hit "Back", you'd end up back on page "A". And most of the time you do.
The problem is that sometimes sites are set up when you click a link on page "A", it takes you to page "C", which quickly and automatically takes you to page "B". Now when you click "Back" it takes you to page "C" ... which quickly and automatically takes you back to page "B". If you hit "Back" a second time, at just the right time, you might be able to get back to page "A". If you're lucky.
Now, it might seem silly to a page into the middle of everything, and sometimes it is. However there are legitimate scenarios where it's the right thing to do. Regardless of whether it's silly or correct, it simply is, and as a web surfer you're stuck dealing with it.
Fortunately with current browsers it's not that difficult to deal with. The back button in both IE 6 and 7, as well as FireFox 2 (and I'm assuming other popular browsers) includes a dropdown list of pages you've visited recently - in fact, it's the list of sites that you would be "Backing" through if you kept hitting Back, and none of them automatically did anything.
Here's the button in FireFox:
That little down arrow, when clicked, shows the list of pages you've been to:
Simply click on the site you want to go back to. If there's one of these automatic redirection pages in the middle of everything, you can skip over it by clicking on the real page you want to go back to.
Here's the dropdown list arrow in Internet Explorer 6:
and in Internet Explorer 7:
I know, just because it's relatively easy to deal with, doesn't mean it isn't somewhat annoying. Especially considering that you probably won't realize that you need to take this step until after that first "Back" fails.
It's actually doubly annoying for me, since I see it happen in many cases where it's not actually necessary, or where there are other solutions.
Related:
Ask Leo! - I have IE set to keep history 21 days, but only today is shown. How do I see the rest?
Ask Leo! - How do I clear my search history in FireFox?
Ask Leo! - How do I delete items from Internet Explorer's auto-complete list?
Article C2842 - November 17, 2006
I have found that I din;t have this problem when using a home page other than MSN. I believe this problem is related to Doubleclick and othert ad services. I am about ready to change my homepage!
Posted by: Phil at March 10, 2009 1:21 PMI can't get the Recent Pages button to work. There's no drop down list. I'm using IE8
Posted by: LJ at October 31, 2009 8:19 PMI upgraded to ie8 and start to have this problem. ie6 did not have this problen at leaser on my unit. Is there a fix for thius in ie8? or maybe i should return to ie6
Posted by: Jack at November 24, 2009 8:05 AMI think that there is a virus or a trojan horse that is causing this. I first started having problems a month ago after visiting a questionable website that caused my security software to light up like a Fourth of July spectacular. When I used the drop down menu to go back, a web address appeared in the menu in place of the last page. That web address has disappeared, but now I can't get my "back" arrow to work in any website.
Posted by: Chris at December 31, 2009 8:14 AMI have this problem since installing Internet explorer 8
Posted by: Jan at January 1, 2010 6:04 AM