Dynadot Help

Domain Forwarding

• How do I set up domain forwarding?

  What is domain forwarding? Domain forwarding is the process of redirecting a website visitor to another domain name prior to the initial webpage loading. This will prevent the user from visiting the original URL destination, and will instead forward them to a specified web address.To set up domain forwarding on any of your domain names, please follow these steps: Sign in to your Dynadot account. Select "My Domains" from the left-side menu bar and click "Manage Domains" in the drop-down. Check the box next to your domain name(s) and click on the "Action" button. Choose "DNS Settings" from the "Action" list. On the DNS page, select the "Dynadot Forwarding" setting from the top drop-down menu. Enter the URL of the page you wish to forward to, following the format of the example given. Press the "Forward Domain" button to save your changes. Please be aware that it might take some time for your name server changes to propagate. Check how the Advanced Options work

• What is domain forwarding?

  Domain forwarding redirects all visitors from one domain to another. It differs from other types of redirections, like HTML or script-based redirects, which typically redirect specific web pages within a domain or to a different website. When a user visits a domain that uses domain forwarding, they are automatically directed to the specified URL, and the original domain name entered by the user does not remain in the address bar. Instead, the forwarded URL is displayed.Types of Forwarding:There are three common types of forwarding: domain forwarding, stealth forwarding, and email forwarding. Dynadot provides all three forwarding types free of charge for domains you register or transfer to us.Domain Forwarding:Domain forwarding is the process of redirecting a website visitor to a selected new domain prior to the initial webpage loading. That selected domain appears in the user's address bar. Domain forwarding has no effect on email forwarding. Check here on how to set up domain forwarding. Stealth Forwarding: Stealth forwarding is similar to domain forwarding except the domain name stays in the web browser's URL bar instead of being replaced by the new page's URL. Check here on how to set up stealth forwarding. Email Forwarding: Email forwarding allows you to automatically redirect incoming emails from your domain email address to the designated recipient's email account. Check here on how to set up email forwarding.

• What is forward status code? What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect code?

  The forward status code is the response code sent to a web browser visiting your site if your domain is set to Dynadot domain forwarding. The code tells the web browser that the domain should be forwarded to another location.Which redirect code should I use?Either code, 301 or 302, can be used to forward your web page. A typical visitor to your website will not notice a difference. The different codes are mainly used for search engine optimization (SEO).The 301 redirect code would tell a search engine that it should use the "forward to" page in its search results. For example, dyandot.com should be 301 redirected to dynadot.com, since we want dynadot.com to show up in the search engine results, not dyandot.com.The 302 redirect code would tell the search engine to check back later to see which website should be used in its results. This would be useful if you are temporarily forwarding to another site while you are creating your actual site.

• How can I remove or disable domain forwarding?

  You must update your settings to remove or disable domain forwarding. For example, you can change your settings to our domain parking feature or set name servers, and they will override domain forwarding.

• How do I forward my domain using Dynadot DNS?

  To forward your domain using Dynadot DNS, please follow these steps: Sign in to your Dynadot account. Select "My Domains" on the left-side menu bar and click "Manage Domains" in the drop-down. Check the box next to the domain name(s) you want to forward and click on the "Action" button. Choose "DNS Settings" from the "Action" list. On the DNS Settings page, select "Dynadot DNS" from the drop-down menu. In the "Domain Record (optional)" section, select "Forward" from the drop-down menu, choose forward status type from the "Select" dropdown, and then enter the URL you wish to forward to under the "IP Address or Target Host" box. In the "Subdomain Records (optional)" section, enter "www" as the subdomain, and repeat Step 6. Press the "Save Settings" button to save your changes. Please be aware it may take some time for your changes to propagate. Check how the Advanced Options work

• How do I forward to an IDN or URL with non-Latin characters?

  If you want to forward or stealth forward your domain to an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) or a URL with non-Latin characters (beyond the domain name), the set up is slightly different.International Domains & ExtensionsIf you want to forward your domain to an IDN or a domain name registered on an international domain extension, you need to use punycode to specify the link. Punycode is the ASCII representation of an international domain name or domain extension. You can find the Punycode version of your domain name right under the IDN domain from your account, in the My Domains dropdown, Manage Domains section.For example, if your domain is , you would need to enter the following in our "Webpage to Forward to" section: .International Characters in URLIf you want to forward to a domain name that uses ASCII characters, but the full link you want to forward to has non-ASCII characters in it, you do not need to use punycode. Instead, you will need to set your browser to the correct character encoding* and then copy the link directly from your browser. You can use any character encoding you want, including Chinese Big-5, Japanese Shift-Jis, or Russian. When entering your URL, make sure your browser is displaying the page in the encoding you want to use otherwise the web browser will send us your URL in the wrong format.For example, if you want to forward your domain to , you would need to set your browser encoding to ISO Latin 1 and then copy the full link into the "Webpage to Forward to" section.*To set your browser's character encoding for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, go to "View" in the browser's menu bar at the top. Then click on "Encoding" for Chrome or "Text Encoding" for Firefox and Safari. You will see a list of different character encoding options to choose from.IDN + International URL CharactersIf you're looking at a combo domain where the domain name and/or extension is non-ASCII and there are non-ASCII characters after the domain name, you will need to use a combination of the instructions above. Basically, you will need to enter the domain name using punycode. Then, you will need to copy the rest of the link from your browser with it set to the correct character encoding.For example, if your domain is , then you would need to enter into the "Webpage to Forward to" section having copied the part of the link from your browser with its encoding set to ISO Latin 1.

• What are the Advanced Options for domain forwarding?

  Enable Domain Variable Domain Variable $domain$ can serve as a placeholder and allow you to replace the captured domain in the domain forwarding. For example, to redirect your domain dynadot.com to its corresponding Google search page, you may set up domain forwarding to URL https://www.google.com/search?q=dynadot.com. With domain variable, you can use $domain$ to replace the domain dynadot.com in the target URL https://www.google.com/search?q=dynadot.com. This feature allows you to bulk set up domain forwarding and redirect all selected domains to their respective Google search pages by setting up domain forwarding to URL https://www.google.com/search?q=$domain$ Enable Wildcard Forwarding By using wildcard forwarding, you can handle multiple levels of pages or directories dynamically and forward them to the corresponding pages on the target website. For example: set A.com to be forwarded to http://B.com/cp/ca/cb/cc/ When visiting http://A.com/log.html, you will be redirected to http://B.com/cp/ca/cb/cc/log.html. Similarly, when visiting http://A.com/out.html, you will be forwarded to http://B.com/cp/ca/cb/cc/out.html. Note: The forwarded webpage should always end with / if the wildcard forwarding is enabled (i.e. http://anotherdomain.com/mypath/). Wildcard Forwarding is different from wildcard subdomain forwarding. With wildcard subdomain forwarding, you use * as the subdomain, and set domain forwarding so all your subdomains will be redirected to the same URL.