What are the benefits of showing "Your download will begin in x seconds"?

Question

Are there technological benefits when presenting a "download page" that gives a message like the following?

Your download should automatically begin in a few seconds, but if not, click here.

Is there some bandwidth or server efficiencies with this? Or is it for the benefit of the user somehow? Why not just have your download link href's go straight to the url of the download?

Example page (one of a billion)

Answer 1

• Advertising
• SEO benefits, you minimize the links to non html pages of your source page
• you can present similar downloaded products ...
• time for your Content Delivery Network to cache the download, if you point the user to a file not-yet-cached by the CDN

Answer 2

Advertising space.