12/18/2014 – How to Create a Redirect in cPanel

Posted by Jamison on 18 12 2014.

Redirecting is something all web hosts should know how to do. Sometimes you have to move data to another page and you want visitors to be taken there. Sometimes visitors remember an old URL, or simply don’t know there is a new and better version of the site they want to visit. Whatever the reason, redirects save visitors the time it takes to look for the right site and it will also save you trouble.

How to set up a redirect with cPanel

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Go to Domains and click the Redirects icon.
3. The Type drop-down menu should open, select which type of redirect you want to use.

Note that a Permanent 301 is a redirect that will update the visitor’s bookmarks and direct search engines to the new site while a Temporary 302 redirect will redirect the visitor or search engine to the right place but will not update the bookmark. Search engines will still continue to index to the original page.

1. From the “http://(www.)” drop-down menu, choose the domain name where you want visitors or search engines redirected

You can use the adjacent text field to enter the name of the folder or file if you want to redirect a single page or directory.

1. In the “redirects to” field, enter the full URL of the page to which you will be redirecting

Remember that you must enter the protocol (e.g. http://, https:// or ftp://) also so that the domain URL will be accepted.

1. You will be given several redirect options:

• Only redirect with www. only redirects visitors that type www. as part of the URL
• Redirect with or without www. redirects all visitors whether they use www. or not
• Do Not Redirect www. will not redirect visitors that use www. as part of the URL

Here is a warning: Never create a redirect for domain.com to www.domain.com or from domain.com to domain.com/index.something. Doing any of this will result in an infinite loop. If you have to control the www and index page, you must use mod_rewrite by adding .htaccess code.

1. Clicking on the Wild Card Redirect option will let users set up a redirect to the same file on a new destination

For example: With Wild Card Redirect, www.example.com/about.html will redirect to www.example-destination.com/about.html, while Without Wild Card Redirect, www.example.com/about.html visitors will be redirected to www.example-destination.com

1. Click Add to create the redirect you want

When visitors type the exact URL that you specified, they should now be redirected to the new target site.

How to redirect a subdomain to another page

If you want to redirect your subdomain to another page, just perform the following steps:

1. Log into cPanel.
2. Go to the Domains section and click the Subdomains icon.
3. Under Modify a Subdomain click the Manage Redirection link to the right of the subdomain you wish to redirect.
4. In the text box, type the URL where you would want your visitors to be redirected if they go to the subdomain.
5. Click Save.

The next time you visit the subdomain, you should now be redirected to the page you entered.