system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do some web pages don't go back to the previous page unless you continuously click the "previous page" button.
gpt
Because what you think is the "previous page" isn't. In many cases, when you click on a link to a page, it redirects you to another page. Often this happens so fast you don't even realize it. Let's take three web pages:

* Page A - Contains a link to Page B
* Page B - automatically redirects to page C
* Page C - Final web page.

You start on Page A, click the link to Page B, it automatically redirects you to Page C. You don't even realize Page B is there and think Page A is the "previous page" when it is not.

However, your browser knows that Page B is the previous page. So when you click the "back" button, it takes you back to Page B, which just redirects you back to Page ~~A~~ C. If you repeatedly click the "back" button, you'll be able to go back to Page A because the browser will process the "back" request before processing the code on Page B that redirects you to Page C.