custom welcome screen for first time site vistors

For legal reasons im mirgrating an existing site to its new domain. The old site is still going to be run until the domain names expire (almost 1 year to go), what i want is to have it so that when users come to my site, they see a welcome screen that mentions the new one, and they can either continue (stay on the old) or go to the new site. Ideally they should only see it once per visit or per week. I guess a cookie would do the job, but how would i go about doing something like this?

any ideas, or links or whatever would be appreciated.

 

your "welcome screen" sets cookie. Your main page shows "welcome screen" if the cookie is not set.
BTW is your site have any backlinks, I would not let the domain to expire, but rather redirect it to the new domain name (for PR and traffic purposes)

 

Do you absolutely need a welcome screen for first time viewers?

The reason I ask... It *could* seem like URL cloaking to a Search Engine. It also may have a negative impact on your ranking since the Search Engine can't crawl your actual site FROM the main page.

Why don't you instead use a CSS Floating DIV to display a welcome message?

 

that is a good point and this is what I thought OP meant by "welcome screen" (with the X in the right top corner to close it if not interested). This is how it usually done with on the sites that offer something (like to signup for newsletter) on the first visit

 

I agree with atxsurf just set a cookie when they first see it then check for it whenever they log on, but for that remember not to set an expiry date so it is infinite!

 

thanks but for legal reasons the domain name wont be renewed. losing page rank, negative seo, or anything like will be devastating, but the domain name contains a trademark (i had permission to use it though....), i will just have to be more careful with my choice of domain names in the future.

The only task now is to transfer the majority of visitors as seamlessly as possible over to the new domain.

Im not familiar with that, but i shall google it and see how i go. It sounds just like what i am looking for.
Thanks heaps for the tip.