What is URL redirect?
URL redirect (URL forwarding) allows you to forward your domain visitors to any URL of your choice (to a new domain or a different website).
You can set
301 (Permanent), 302 (Unmasked), and Masked (URL Frame) redirects for the domain names that use our
BasicDNS,
PremiumDNS or
FreeDNS nameservers.
If everything is configured properly, it takes about 30 minutes to start working.
NOTE: URL forwarding described in this article cannot be configured for Google Registry TLDs (.app, .boo, .day, .dev, .how, .new, .page, .rsvp, .soy). Such domains must have an SSL certificate installed along with the HTTPS setup for them to load in browsers, which cannot be done on our URL Redirect servers.
NOTE: Redirect with a secure connection (HTTPS) is possible only to a different destination domain
(e.g. http://www.domain.tld to https://www.anotherdomain.tld). If you need this type of redirect (HTTP >> HTTPS) or vice versa (HTTPS >> HTTP) within one domain name
(http://domain.tld to
https://domain.tld)
, it should be done via the
.htaccess file
or
Namecheap SSL plugin
in cPanel on the condition an
SSL certificate is installed
.
Please note that https://domain1.com to https://domain2.com will not work as well without having SSL certificates installed on both domains.
NOTE:
TLD (Top Level Domain) stands for your domain extension (.COM, .NET, etc.)
There are two ways to proceed with configuring URL redirect:
How To Redirect a URL in the Domain Tab
1. After you click on the Manage button, locate the Redirect Domain section and click on Add Redirect:
NOTE: Click Add Wildcard redirect to create a wildcard record to match requests for non-existent subdomains.
2. Type your domain in the Source URL field (e.g. yourdomain.tld / domain.com / newdomain.info) and the link to which you need to forward your domain in the Destination URL field. If you want both yourdomain.tld and www.yourdomain.tld to be redirected, add the record for www accordingly.
Save the changes using green checkmarks on the right or the Save All Changes button:
3. Go to the
Advanced DNS tab to check whether there are any
conflicting records (
A,
CNAME, URL redirect records with different values but set for the same host). Such records
must be removed for the domain to work properly:
NOTE: Your root domain (domain.tld) is marked with the @ symbol in the Host field here.
That's it! The redirect should be working within 30 minutes.
How To Redirect a URL in the Advanced DNS Tab
1. After you click on the
Manage button, go to
Advanced DNS tab >> the
Host records section. Click on the
Add New Record button (
not able to edit Host Records?):
2. Select
URL Redirect Record from the drop-down menu for
Type, put the host to be forwarded to the
Host line (
@ for your root domain, i.e., domain.com, www for www.domain.com, * for a wildcard record), and enter the
destination URL into the
Value line:
If needed, change the Redirect Type from Unmasked to Masked or Permanent (301) using the drop-down menu:
3. Save the changes:
More details on
hosts you can use can be found in the "
How do I create a subdomain for my domain?" article.
4. Make sure there are no conflicting records (
A,
CNAME, URL Redirect records with different values but set for the same host) for your domain. If there are any,
remove them as follows:
As a rule, it takes up to
30 minutes for changes to be accepted globally.
NOTE: There is an
additional A record in the domain zone file once URL redirect is set for your domain. This A record is not visible in the Advanced DNS section. It simply points your domain name to our
internal forwarding server and will be removed once the URL redirect record is deleted.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact our
Support Team.