splash page (splash screen)

A splash page (or splash screen) is:

1) An initial Web site page used to capture the user's attention for a short time as a promotion or lead-in to the site home page or to tell the user what kind of browser and other software they need to view the site.

To have the splash page automatically move to the home page after a specified delay, include the HTML tag in the splash page as in this example with a 10-second delay:

< META http-equiv="refresh" content="10; URL=http://www.somesitename.com/home.html" >

The advantage of a splash page is that you can create effects or provide information that is only needed once a visit. For example, a user can keep coming back to the home page without having to be bothered with browser requirements.

2) Some sites use "splash page" to mean the home page itself, especially where it contains attention-capturing visual or multimedia effects (creating a "splash").