What Is Domain Forwarding?

Why It Matters

Domain forwarding is one of the most common uses of URL forwarding. If you own old-brand.com and want all visitors to end up at new-brand.com, domain forwarding handles that automatically.

For businesses, domain forwarding is essential for:

• Rebrands — Redirect the old company domain to the new one
• Defensive registrations — Forward common misspellings and brand variations to your primary domain
• Domain consolidation — Merge multiple domains (country-specific, product-specific) into one
• Vanity domains — Forward short marketing URLs to specific landing pages (see also URL shortening)
• Catch-all redirects — Forward every path and subdomain with a single rule

How It Works

Domain forwarding requires two components:

1. DNS configuration — The forwarded domain’s DNS records (A record or CNAME) must point to a redirect server.
2. Redirect rules — The redirect server must be configured to respond with a 301 or 302 redirect to the destination domain.

With a dedicated service like Domain Forward, you point your domain’s DNS to our servers and configure the destination in our dashboard. We handle the HTTPS termination, SSL certificate provisioning, and redirect response.

Common Mistakes

Not forwarding the apex domain AND the subdomain. If you forward example.com but not www.example.com, visitors who type the www version see an error page.

Using registrar forwarding for permanent moves. Most registrars default to 302 redirects (temporary) and don’t support HTTPS on the source domain. This hurts SEO and shows browser security warnings.

Not preserving the path. Forward old.com/about to new.com/about — not just new.com. Otherwise, deep links from search engines and bookmarks break.

How Domain Forward Handles This

Domain Forward is purpose-built for domain forwarding. We support 301 redirects by default, automatic HTTPS via auto-provisioned SSL certificates, path forwarding, and query string preservation — all from a simple dashboard.