Redirecting a domain without a hosting

Redirecting a domain without a hosting

A domain without a hosting can redirect its visitors elsewhere – it costs nothing and needs no hosting: the redirect runs directly on the server that answers for the domain.

When a redirect is active

You can only add a redirect to a domain that has no hosting attached – a hosting on that domain would shadow the redirect's answers. On the domain's page (Domains → (your domain)), the Redirects section shows an Add Redirect button only when no hosting is attached; if the domain does have a hosting, the section instead shows that the domain is attached to a hosting which answers for it, so the redirects are not active, and that the hosting must be detached first.

The first rule added switches the domain into redirect mode: if we run the domain's DNS zone, the redirect automatically points the apex's (and, unless excluded, www's) A record at our redirect server and replaces the address records they have now. If we do not run the domain's DNS, the panel instead shows you the IP address to point those A records at with your DNS provider.

Deleting the last rule turns the domain's redirect off.

Adding a rule

The Add Redirect form has three fields:

• Source Path – / redirects the whole domain; any other path (e.g. /old-page) redirects only that exact address, not any subpaths or its query string.
• Destination URL – where the visitor is sent. It is used exactly as entered; the original request's path is not appended to it.
• Redirect Type – 301 – Permanent or 302 – Temporary.

Each rule can be individually toggled with Disable/Enable or removed, from the actions menu on its row.

HTTPS and the SSL certificate

HTTPS on a redirected domain starts working only once the redirect server has obtained an SSL certificate, which can only happen after the domain's DNS records actually point at that server's IP. Until then, the redirect works over plain HTTP.

If certificate issuance gets stuck (for example you added the domain before its DNS change had propagated), disabling and re-enabling one of that domain's redirect rules helps – this change forces a new certificate attempt. Simply re-saving a rule that hasn't changed does not have this effect.

Limits

A rule's path must start with a slash and cannot contain a space or the characters ? # " \` \; the same source path cannot be used twice on the same domain. The destination URL must be an http:// or https:// address.