Setting Up Domain Forwarding and Redirects

What Domain Forwarding Does

Domain forwarding automatically sends visitors from one domain to another, without requiring the forwarded domain to host any actual website content itself. This is commonly used when a business owns multiple domain variations, such as common misspellings or alternate extensions, and wants all of them to lead visitors to the same main website.

If you have not yet read DNS Management: A/CNAME/MX/TXT Records Explained, it covers the underlying DNS concepts that forwarding builds on.

Common Reasons to Set Up Forwarding

Businesses typically set up domain forwarding to consolidate several owned domain variations into one primary site, to redirect an old domain to a new one after a rebrand, to point a short, easy to remember domain toward a longer primary website address, or to redirect a specific marketing campaign domain to a particular page on the main site.

Types of Redirects

A 301 redirect signals a permanent move, telling browsers and search engines that the content has permanently relocated to the new address, and is the appropriate choice for most long term forwarding situations, including rebrands or domain consolidation. A 302 redirect signals a temporary move, appropriate for short term situations where the forwarding is not intended to be permanent, such as a limited time campaign redirect.

Choosing the correct type matters particularly for search engine visibility, since a 301 redirect properly transfers search ranking value to the new destination, while a 302 redirect does not carry the same weight, since it signals the change is not meant to be permanent.

Setting Up Forwarding

Domain forwarding is typically configured through your domain management dashboard rather than your website's hosting control panel. Locate the forwarding option for the specific domain, enter the destination URL you want visitors redirected to, and select the appropriate redirect type based on whether the change is permanent or temporary.

Forwarding to a Specific Page

Rather than forwarding only to another domain's homepage, many forwarding tools allow you to redirect to a specific page, useful for campaign specific domains meant to land visitors directly on relevant content rather than a general homepage.

What Forwarding Does Not Do

Domain forwarding redirects visitors browsing to that domain, but does not automatically forward email sent to addresses at that domain. Email forwarding, if needed, is a separate configuration handled through your email settings rather than domain forwarding itself. See Setting Up Email Forwarding and Auto-Responders if that is what you actually need.

Verifying Your Forwarding Works

After setting up forwarding, test it by visiting the forwarded domain directly in a browser, ideally from a private or incognito window to avoid cached results, confirming it correctly redirects to your intended destination.