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Domain Forwarding

This article includes best practices and troubleshooting for domain name (URL) forwarding

Garrett Saundry avatar
Written by Garrett Saundry
Updated over a week ago

Basic domain forwarding is free and easy to do.

  • Log into your Webnames.ca account

  • Navigate to My Account > Manage > Domains

  • Click on the domain in question

  • Under the Domain Configuration heading, scroll down to Forwarding and click the Configure button

  • On the subsequent page, enter in the destination URL that you would like to forward your source domain to into the "Forwarding to:" field.

    • Optionally, you may utilize the Gripping option, which results in your domain name staying in your visitor's web browser address bar. With this option unchecked, the forwarding will result in the address bar updating as the visitor is forwarded from your domain to the destination site.

  • Click Apply to save your changes

NOTE ABOUT HTTPS: As part of the security measures that secured HTTP (HTTPS) affords users, there are a couple of scenarios where mixing HTTP and HTTPS URLs will not work.

WORKS

http://domain1.ca forwarding to http://domain2.ca

https://domain1.ca forwarding to https://domain2.ca

DOES NOT WORK

http://domain1.ca forwarding to https://domain2.ca

https://domain1.ca forwarding to http://domain2.ca

Additionally, any kind of gripping will not work with HTTPS

HTTPS Recommendations

In most cases the domain name you will be forwarding to will already start with HTTPS. HTTPS is the secure version of regular HTTP, and this security comes from an SSL certificate which is already installed on the destination website. Therefore, the most common/standard/desirable method of forwarding is to utilize HTTPS on both the source and the destination. e.g.:

https://domain1.ca forwarding to https://domain2.ca

In this configuration, two SSL certificates are needed - one on the destination you are forwarding to, but also one on the source domain name you are forwarding.

The SSL certificate on the destination is probably already in place - that's indicative of the HTTPS at the beginning of the URL. The extra step is to get an SSL certificate in place on the source as well.

Typically, some kind of web hosting plan is necessary in order to support HTTPS, since the needed SSL certificate has to be physically installed and reside "somewhere". SO while web hosting is certainly an option, it is also overkill for such a basic need as domain name forwarding.

Included in both our Advanced and Premium DNS Hosting, HTTPS URL Forwarding is fully supported. To achieve this, we supply and configure an SSL certificate for the domain name you are forwarding so that fully secure HTTPS to HTTPS forwarding can occur, e.g.:

https://domain1.ca forwarding to https://domain2.ca

With URL Forwarding from our DNS Hosting enabled, HTTPS encryption is automatically enabled on the domain via Let's Encrypt. As a result, the domain can be access via both http:// and https:// before being forwarded to the destination URL. Additionally, both http:// and https:// destinations are supported.

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