How to Forward a domain to another domain

Do you have a new domain name for your website and you are thinking of how to link the old and the new domain together such that if people visit the old domain it will forward or redirect the user to the new domain name?

In this article, we will be learning domain forwarding, how we can handle domain forwarding, and the reason why it is necessary.

What is Domain forwarding?

Sometimes a website is so good you have to name it twice, three times, or more. Included in the cost of the domain name, domain forwarding allows you to point one or more domain names to an existing website. You may be wondering why or how you would use additional domain names to drive traffic to your primary website. Misspellings, alternate extensions, abbreviations, or keywords are all popular examples of different domain names pointing to the same website.

For example; If your domain is registered with GoDaddy (one of the most popular web hosting companies where you can host your websites) and your website is hosted by another web hosting company, you can forward your GoDaddy domain to a site you've created with Wix, WordPress, or any other URL.

Reasons why you need domain forwarding

• Misspelling: How many times have you accidentally typed facebok.com into your web browser? Think about how much traffic a domain name like that gets from people mistakenly entering the wrong address. Facebook combats this by redirecting facebok.com, fasebook.com, and many other misspellings to their main website, facebook.com. If they hadn’t their users could end up on someone else’s website, a competitor perhaps. Web forwarding creates a seamless experience for users who might not have even realized their mistake.

• Abbreviations: Businesses, universities, and other such cases can use abbreviations as either their main domain name or as their redirect. Kelly Blue Book uses web forwarding for this purpose. When you type kellybluebook.com into your web browser you will be redirected to their main website address kbb.com.

• Keywords or Phrases: We don’t always get our first choice when it comes to usernames for our social media profiles or domain endings. If you didn’t get your name in .com you can always find a short and keyword-specific new domain ending to redirect to.

With the introduction of hundreds of new generic domains, web forwarding (also known as “Domain forwarding” or “URL forwarding”) is a great tool to have.

Why do we use hosting?

To build a website you will need both a domain name and a web hosting account. You need web hosting to store your website’s files. After you get hosting, you need to update your domain name settings and point it to your web hosting service provider. You can also buy both the domain and hosting from the same company.

Why webpage redirection is useful for website development?

A website redirect points your old URL to a new page. When anyone types in or click on that original URL they’ll be taken to the page you set the redirect up to instead. It ensures visitors don’t end up on a 404 page and instead find something relevant to what they were originally looking for.

Different types of Domain forwarding

There are two main types of domain forwarding;

1. Forward Only or HTTP 301 Forwarding

Forwarding as 301/redirect forwards your domain name to another URL while changing the name to the forwarded-to site’s address in the browser location bar. This is the most popular option of web forwarding.

• Redirects visitors to a destination URL of your choosing

• Keeps the destination URL in the browser address bar

For example, you have a domain name called old.com and you forward the domain to another domain say new.com. If the user visits old.com, the user will be redirected to new.com, but old.com will be displayed in the URL bar. The good reason you want to do this is probably that you do not want the user to feel insecure seeing another URL, knowing that was not the URL the user entered. So for that sake, you might choose the forward-only option.

2. Forward with Masking (Cloaking Forwarding)

Forwarding with masking forwards your domain name to another URL while keeping the original name in the browser location bar. This prevents visitors from seeing your forwarded-to domain name.

• Redirects visitors to a destination URL of your choosing

• Keeps your domain name in the browser address bar

• Allows you to enter meta-tags for search engine information

For example, you have a domain name called this.com and you forward the domain to another domain say new.com. If the user visits old.com, the user will be redirected to new.com, and new.com will be displayed in the URL bar.

How do I redirect a domain to another?

Redirecting a new domain or subdomain (legacy) I think I should specify that different hosting providers have different ways of forwarding domain, but the most important thing is to locate the domain forwarding section.

Using GoDaddy for example:

1. Log in to your GoDaddy Domain Control Center.

2. Navigate to the Manage Domains page. The Manage Domains page opens.

3. Select your domain to access the Domain Settings page.

4. Select Manage DNS under Additional Settings.

5. Under Forwarding, select Add domain next to Domain or Subdomain. If you select a subdomain, enter the subdomain (maximum of 63 characters) in the Subdomain field.

6. Choose http:// or https:// from the dropdown menu for the destination URL your domain will forward to.

7. Enter the forwarding address in the Destination URL field. This is where we'll send visitors when they type your domain in their browser's address bar.

8. Select your Forward type, either Permanent (301) or Temporary (302).

9. Select Save.

I hope you found this article helpful 🙂.

Thanks for reading ❤️.

Happy coding 💻!