Guide Domains & DNS

How to redirect one domain to another

Two ways to send one domain to another, and why a proper 301 redirect matters far more than it looks like it should.

iFastHosting Support Team Updated 26 August 2026 7 min read Intermediate

Redirecting a domain means anyone typing or clicking it ends up at a different domain instead. There are two genuinely different ways to achieve this, and which one you should use depends entirely on whether the domain being redirected has any existing traffic, backlinks, or search engine visibility worth preserving.

The two methods, and when each applies

Method	Use it when	How it behaves
Registrar domain forwarding	A spare or newly registered domain with no existing traffic or search history	Simple to set up, but often implemented as a basic redirect that does not reliably preserve search engine value
A proper 301 redirect at server level	Any domain that currently has visitors, links pointing at it, or search rankings you want carried over	Tells browsers and search engines explicitly that the move is permanent, which is what actually preserves ranking signal over time

Do not use simple forwarding for a domain that matters

The difference is not cosmetic. A permanent, correctly coded 301 redirect is the specific signal search engines rely on to transfer ranking credit from an old domain to a new one. Basic registrar forwarding does not reliably send that signal, and using it for an established domain can mean losing search visibility that a proper redirect would have preserved.

Method 1: registrar domain forwarding

Most registrars offer a forwarding feature directly in the domain's management settings, with no hosting or DNS knowledge required. You enter the destination URL, save, and visitors are sent there. This is genuinely fine for a domain you registered defensively — a common misspelling, an old product name nobody links to — where there is nothing to preserve and simplicity is the only real requirement.

Method 2: a proper 301 redirect

For anything more important than that, point the domain at hosting and configure the redirect at server level instead, so it behaves as a genuine, permanent HTTP redirect rather than whatever mechanism basic forwarding uses behind the scenes.

Point the domain at your hosting
Set its nameservers, or its A record, to your hosting account, exactly as you would for a domain that was going to host its own website. See how to point a domain to your hosting if this step is new to you.
Add the domain to your hosting account
The domain needs to exist on the hosting side as well as in DNS before a redirect rule set up for it will have any effect. See how to host a second website on one account for adding an additional domain if the redirect is not for your account's primary domain.
Configure the redirect
In your control panel, most redirect tools let you choose the redirect type and destination without writing any server configuration by hand. Choose a permanent redirect, and set the destination to the full address of the new domain, including the protocol.
Decide whether to preserve the path
A redirect can either send every visitor to the same destination page regardless of what they typed, or carry the specific page they requested across to the equivalent page on the new domain. The second option is considerably better for anyone arriving via an old bookmark or a search result pointing at a specific page, since it avoids sending them to an unrelated homepage.

Testing it

Visit the old domain in a private browser window, which avoids any cached result skewing what you see, and confirm it lands on the correct destination. If you have access to check response headers, a properly configured permanent redirect will report a 301 status code — most browser developer tools show this under the network tab for the initial request.

Do not forget HTTPS on both sides

If the old domain still needs to work for existing links, it needs a valid SSL certificate of its own even though it only exists to redirect elsewhere — otherwise visitors following an old link over HTTPS see a security warning before the redirect ever gets a chance to fire.

Common problems

The redirect loops back on itself. This usually means the destination domain is, directly or indirectly, redirecting back to the source — check both ends rather than assuming the fault is only where you last edited.
Only the homepage redirects correctly. Individual pages landing on the wrong place, or on an error, usually means the redirect rule only matches the bare domain rather than carrying the full path across.
The change has not taken effect yet. If you just pointed the domain at hosting as part of this process, allow for normal DNS spreading time before assuming the redirect itself is broken — see how long DNS propagation takes.

If you have set this up and it is still not behaving correctly, contact our support team with both domain names involved and we can check the configuration from our side.