MasterPages is an ASP.NET 2.0 feature that allows us to design consistent web sites. With ASP.NET 1.x, the best shot is to use a technique demonstrated by a sample from ASP.NET website. Comparing to page template technique based on custom base page class, it is easier to migrate to ASP.NET 2.0 with this technique. A few people made improvements. Paul Wilson's version added design time support. The metabuilder version allow nested templates.