Sometimes the right thing to do at the end of a countdown is not to change the page, but to leave it — a coming-soon page should hand over to the real home page, an expired offer should hand over to the current one.
The Countdown widget can send visitors to a URL you choose once the deadline has passed.
For the full settings tour of the Countdown widget, see Countdown Widget: Settings Overview.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: the Countdown widget itself is in the free plugin, but this page uses a Pro setting (see the next line).
- Pro feature: Select Action and Page Redirect Url is part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro. In the free plugin the control is either missing or replaced by an upgrade notice.
- Prerequisite: Elementor (free) installed and active.
- Widget to enable: go to The Plus Addons > Widgets, search for Countdown and turn its toggle on.
- Prerequisite: the destination page must already exist and be published. Copy its full URL before you start.
Steps
- Edit the page in Elementor and add the Countdown widget.
- In Content > Layout, keep Countdown Setup on Normal Countdown and set the Launch Date.
- Open Content > Special Option and leave After Expiry Action on.
- Set Select Action to Page Redirect.
- Paste the destination into Page Redirect Url. Use the full address, including
https://. - Publish the page, then open it in a private window to check it.
Settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| After Expiry Action | Master switch for the end-of-countdown behaviour. | On |
| Select Action | Set to Page Redirect for this page. | None |
| Page Redirect Url | Where the visitor is sent. Any URL, on your site or off it. | Empty |
Leave Page Redirect Url empty and nothing happens at all — no redirect, and no warning in the editor. Fill it in before you publish.
How It Behaves
Watched end to end in a browser on a published page:
- The timer counts down normally while the deadline is in the future.
- At zero, a visitor who is still sitting on the page is not moved. The timer simply reads 00 00 00 00.
- The next load of that page after the deadline sends the browser to the destination — a real navigation: the address bar changes and the destination page’s own title is what you end up on.
- The redirect happens in the browser, after the page has loaded, so the original page is briefly visible first. It is not a server-side 301.
Limitations
- The after-expiry action only happens on the next page load. This was watched on a published page: the timer counts down normally, reaches 00 00 00 00 — and then nothing else happens for as long as the visitor leaves the page open. The message, the template and the page redirect all appear only when the page is loaded again after the deadline has passed. A visitor who is already sitting on the page when the timer runs out just sees a row of zeros. Plan for that: put the real information somewhere the zeros cannot contradict, and do not promise visitors that anything will change in front of them.
- This is not a real redirect for search engines. The page still returns 200 with its own content; the move happens in JavaScript afterwards. If you need the old URL to stop existing, set up a proper 301 at the server or with a redirect plugin as well.
- An empty Page Redirect Url fails silently. Nothing is redirected and nothing tells you why.
- Launch Date is only accurate to the minute. The date picker stores hours and minutes; seconds are dropped. A deadline set for 10:30 fires at 10:30:00, so do not build anything that depends on a particular second.
- The deadline is your site’s clock, not the visitor’s. The target time is rendered from the WordPress timezone on the server. Visitors in other timezones all see the timer end at the same moment, which is usually what you want — but it will not match “midnight” where they are.
- Turn Elementor’s element cache off for this widget. Elementor’s Element Cache is on by default and stores rendered markup for a day, which can serve a stale deadline. Set Advanced > Layout > Cache Settings to Inactive on the Countdown widget, or disable it site-wide under Elementor > Settings > Performance.
Troubleshooting
The countdown hit zero and I am still on the same page
Reload. The redirect is triggered on page load, not while you watch. This is how the feature works today, so do not build a page whose copy promises visitors they will be “taken there automatically” the second the clock stops.
Nothing happens even after reloading
Check three things in this order: After Expiry Action is on, Select Action is Page Redirect, and Page Redirect Url actually contains a full URL. An empty URL is the most common cause and it gives no error.
I redirected the page I was editing and now I cannot get back into it
Open the Elementor editor through the WordPress admin (Pages, then Edit with Elementor) rather than by visiting the page itself. The redirect only runs on the public page, not in the editor.
Not verified
So you know exactly what has and has not been checked:
- Redirecting to an external domain. Only a same-site destination was tried.
- The Open in new window and Add nofollow options on the URL control. The field’s link options were left at their defaults.
- Behaviour behind a full-page cache. Testing was done on an uncached site.
