What is web forwarding?

Web forwarding is a way for your domain name to be pointed to another web address or page. The main types of forwarders that you can set up are a 301 (Permanent), a 302 (Temporary) forwarder and a forward with masking, all of which are outlined below.

301

This is a permanent type of web forwarding which tells search engines that your domain name will be permanently pointing at the new location. It helps search engines like Google to index the final destination page correctly.

You should use permanent web forwarding unless you plan to point your domain elsewhere in the near future. (Despite the name, you can always change your permanent web forwarding settings if needed.)

For more information on how to set this up, please see our guide: How do I add 301 (Permanent) Web forwarding?

302

This is a temporary type of web forwarding that tells search engines your domain name forwarding may change again soon. It does this so that search engines can continue checking the domain name – which means the final destination page may not get indexed properly by search engines like Google.

You should only use temporary web forwarding when you know you’ll be changing the forwarding settings again soon. If unsure, permanent forwarding is usually the safer option.

For more information on setting this up, please see our guide: Forward my 123 Reg domain

Forwarding with Masking

This special type of forwarding will direct people to your preferred URL while keeping the original domain name in the browser bar. For example, let’s say you have two domains: your-idea.org, which has a website associated with it, and your-idea.co.uk, which doesn’t. You could set your-idea.co.uk to forward with masking to your-idea.org, so that anyone using either domain is taken to the website and be none the wiser.

You can also add meta tags with this type of forwarder, helping to boost its ranking on search engines.

Forwarding over HTTPS

You can now forward domains using HTTPS. In the past, while forwarding to sites with SSL Certificates was allowed, the initial connection to the forwarded domain wasn't protected by SSL. This could leave websites unprotected. However, it’s now common for browsers to connect over HTTPS by default, giving better security from the start. This feature is applied automatically when setting up or editing forwarding.

Modern browsers prefer HTTPS because it brings better security and performance. They’ll attempt to connect to a domain over HTTPS if the connection type isn’t specified. For instance, if you type google.co.uk, your browser will attempt to connect to https://google.co.uk first. If it can’t connect over HTTPS, it then redirects to HTTP, which takes longer and is more likely to cause issues. Forwarding over HTTPS makes it easier than ever to manage your domains and keep them secure.

To find out how to remove a web forwarder instead, please see our guide: Remove my domain forwarding