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Domains: How to setup Domain Redirects

The Redirects interface allows you to send all of the visitors of a domain or particular page to a different URL.

For example, if create a page with a long URL, use the Redirects interface to add a redirect from a short URL to the long URL. Visitors can enter the short URL to access the content of the long URL.

• How to setup redirects in SiteAdmin
• How to setup redirects in cPanel
• How to setup redirects in a .htaccess file

How to setup domain redirects in SiteAdmin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to SiteAdmin

Now let’s see how to setup a URL redirect.

1) Click the Website Tools option from the left menu, then click URL Redirects.

2) Now select the redirect type. A permanent redirect will notify the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarks that are linked to the page that is being redirected. Temporary redirects will not update the visitor’s bookmarks.

3) Select the domain and path you wish to redirect.

4) Enter where you want to redirect to. This is where the user will be sent when trying to access the domain and path you set.

5) Select the  www redirect type. If you use Redirect with or without www then it will redirect the user regardless if they have a www in the url or not.

6) Select if you want a Wild Card Redirect or not. Wild cards will redirect the user, even if they are trying to load a sub-folder of the path you set.

7) Click Add

That’s it!

Example 1) In this example, we have http://site5demo.com/billing redirecting to http://billing.site5demo.com. We selected a Permanent redirect type so that it updates our user’s browser favorites. We also selected the www redirect option so that it is not www sensitive, meaning that it does not matter if they enter www or not. In addition, we also are using a wild card redirect so that if the user was trying to access a sub-folder, it will still redirect them.

Example 2) In this example, we have http://site5demo.com/oldpage redirecting to http://site5demo.com/newpage. We selected a Permanent redirect type so that it updates our user’s browser favorites. We also selected the www redirect option so that it is not www sensitive, meaning that it does not matter if they enter www or not. This is a good way of sending the user to a new/updated page if your web software can’t do it automatically.

Example 3) In this example, we have http://site5demo.com/redirect redirecting to http://site5.com (note that its a different domain). We selected a permanent redirect type so that it updates our user’s browser favorites. We also selected the www redirect option so that it is not www sensitive, meaning that it does not matter if they enter www or not. This is a good way of sending users to another domain or project site.

How to setup domain redirects in cPanel

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to cPanel

Now let’s learn how to setup domain redirects

1) Click the Redirects icon

2) Now select the redirect type. A permanent redirect will notify the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarks that are linked to the page that is being redirected. Temporary redirects will not update the visitor’s bookmarks.

3) Enter the URL that you want to redirect

4) Then enter the destination URL… where you want visitors to be redirected to

5) Click Add

That’s it! The redirect has been created. Now when someone visits the contact.html page, they’ll automatically be redirected to the contactus.html page

6) Click Go Back

From here you can see a list of domain redirects…

… and you can delete them too

The domain redirect has been removed

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to setup domain redirects in cPanel

How to Redirect Your Domain to a Subfolder Using .htaccess

Sometimes the simple things are the hardest to figure out and today we are going to show you a simple way to redirect your primary domain to a subfolder on that domain. For the purposes of this tutorial it will redirect to a subfolder at /blog. This is useful if your WordPress blog is installed to a subfolder and you want the main domain to forward to it.

In your public_html folder (also called the “root html” folder), you need to create a file called .htaccess

From this file we are going to use a few lines to redirect those requests in a search engine friendly way.

Add the following lines to that file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?YourDomain.com$
RewriteRule ^(/)?$ blog [L]

The only change you need to make is to change “YourDomain.com” to your domain. This will then redirect everything from the domain to the folder /blog at that domain. If you want to change that folder just edit the “blog” part.

Redirect KB Shortcuts:

• How to redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com automatically
• How to redirect HTTP(non secure) requests to HTTPS (secure)

For further information on what you can do with a .htaccess file I recommend the following sites…

• Comprehensive Guide To .htaccess – Scroll to the bottom of the page for 12 tips on things you can do with the .htaccess file. Everything from password protection to redirects to preventing directory listings.
• .htaccess Cheat Sheet – A nice listing of different tips and tricks to use. Sparse on explanations though (that is why it is a cheat sheet).
• .htaccess Tools – A great site that has some basic tools online that can generate everything for you. Nice article on how to detect and redirect iPhone users as well.
• Perishable Press Stuipd .htaccess Tricks – When you finish reading this you will be a .htaccess ninja! 56 pages of easy to read documentation. At least easier to read than the official Apache docs.

Just a word of warning, Apache redirects are often a thing of voodoo magic and for really complex rules you might have to play with them for a while to get them to work how you want.