Creating a redirect

There’s a handful of use cases for redirecting one domain to another and a couple of methods that can be used to achieve it. This guide will walk you through each method.

Option 1, Using an Alias domain.

1. Login to your cPanel account. When you first set up an account with us, you would have received an email with the details on how you can gain access to your control panel. If you have lost those details, feel free to raise a support ticket or call in.

2. Navigate to Domains.

3. Click Create A New Domain to add a new domain.

💡Note: When adding additional domains in cPanel it’s important to take note of the Share document root option, as this is the setting that will differentiate between adding an Alias domain and an Addon domain. Alias domains share the document root with the Primary domain on the account, so make sure you leave this option enabled to create an Alias domain.

4. Click Submit to add the domain, or Submit And Create Another if you’re adding multiple domains.

5. That’s it, you’ve now added an Alias domain to your account which will redirect to your Primary domain. But what if you want it to redirect to a different domain on the account, or perhaps a domain in a separate account etc. That leads us into the second method;

This option sounds more intimidating than it really is, it essentially just means creating a redirect/rule that the server uses to determine where visitors should be sent when visiting your domain.

For example, you want people who visit domain A to go to domain B, but domain B is on a separate account. Using a HTTP redirect (also sometimes known as a 301/302 redirect) is basically just a rule that says if a visitor tries to go to domain A, instead of trying to show them the website under domain A, send them over to domain B and show them that website.

There’s two methods for setting up HTTP Redirects, so we’ll break them down in to part 1 and 2. (The following sections also assume that you’re already logged into your cPanel account).

1. Navigate to Redirects.

2. You’ll now been shown a few different options, some can be left as default while others are dependant on what you want to redirect and to where. The screenshot shows an example of a basic redirect;

3. Click Add to save the redirect.

💡Note: The redirects created through this method will be added to your domains .htaccess file which can be found in the domains document root (e.g. Alias domains and the Primary domain on the account will use the public_html folder as their document root).

On smaller sites this isn’t usually an issue, however larger sites and/or sites with several plugins may conflict with the redirects that are added due to the way the .htaccess file is read by the server.

HTTP Redirects, Part 2.

⚠️ Important: This is a more manual approach to creating redirects and assumes you have some knowledge of how to use cPanel’s File Manager and/or FTP Accounts to access and modify files.

1. Navigate to your domains document root and locate the .htaccess file. In this guide we’re using poldice.com as an example, which uses the public_html as it’s document root.

2. Edit the .htaccess file and add the following to the top;

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www.)?<domain-to-be-redirected-goes-here>$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://<domain-being-redirected-to-goes-here>/$1 [R=301,L]

💡Note: You’ll need to replace where it says <domain-to-be-redirected-goes-here> and <domain-being-redirected-to-goes-here> with the actual/full domains you’re using.

3. Click Save Changes to save the redirect.

💡Note: As mentioned earlier in the guide, due to the way the server reads the .htaccess file the redirects may cause conflicts with other rules/code in the .htaccess file, preventing certain rules/code from working properly. This is because the .htaccess file is read in a hierarchical format (i.e. it’s read from top to bottom), where rules/code written at the top will take priority over those written lower down.

Not all rules/code will conflict, but it’s worth keeping in mind that some will and the rules/code that are closer to the top of the .htaccess file will override the rules/code lower down.

That’s it, you’ve now setup a redirect for your domain. Please keep in mind however that caching mechanisms (e.g. browser cache or caching plugins etc) can sometimes interfere with redirects causing them to appear not to work, simply clearing the cache will usually fix this.

If you are running into any issues or have any further questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.