Domains

Domains Help

What forwarding types are available?

When you set up domain forwarding, your domain will automatically redirect visitors to another URL. It's a handy option if you have a website built elsewhere, need to connect to your established social media profile, or want to put some of your unused domains to work. Check out some of the options you'll see when you set up domain forwarding so you can be sure you're making the best choice for your domains.

Select a topic to learn more:

301 redirects

A 301 redirect is the most common domain forwarding setting, and it's the default option we use when you set up forwarding with GoDaddy. When someone types your domain in their browser address bar, they'll be sent to the destination URL and that new URL will show in their browser address bar.

Example: coolexample.com is forwarding with a 301 redirect to the destination URL happy-fox.com. When a visitor goes to coolexample.com, they'll be automatically redirected to happy-fox.com, and the browser address bar will show the destination URL happy-fox.com.

301 redirects are considered long-term or permanent redirects. Don't worry—we might call them permanent but you can edit your forwarding settings at any time. The permanent moniker indicates that the forwarding is long-term, which lets search engines know what website content it should reference in the search results. This helps the SEO rankings for your forwarded domain and if you decide to change forwarding, those SEO rankings will carry over too.

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302 redirects

With a 302 redirect, you specify a destination URL and when visitors go to your domain, they'll be automatically redirected to that destination URL, and the browser address bar will show the destination URL. A 302 redirect is considered temporary, which lets search engines know they should not index the content of the destination URL. Instead, they'll continue showing previously indexed information and won't update the description details on search results for your domain.

Example: coolexample.com is forwarding with a 302 redirect to the destination URL happy-fox.com. When visitors go to coolexample.com, they'll be automatically redirected to happy-fox.com and the browser address bar will show the destination URL happy-fox.com.

302 redirects are good if you're building a brand-new website or making big changes to an existing site. For example, if you forward your domain to a temporary "Coming Soon" page, you probably don't want search engines to start looking at that temporary page and index that content for search results. 302 redirects let search engines know the forward is temporary, so all your previous indexing and SEO performance is unchanged. When you publish your updated website and remove the forwarding, all your SEO ranking data will be preserved, saving you time and effort to rebuild your search engine presence.

Keeping a 302 redirect in place for too long could negatively impact your domain's search results and SEO rankings. Search engines won't know to reindex the destination site content and update search result information, which could lead to displaying inaccurate details.

Learn more about 301 and 302 redirects in our How-To video.

Forwarding with masking

When forwarding with masking is active, visitors to your domain will be automatically redirected to the destination URL. But unlike 301 and 302 redirects, the forwarded domain will continue to show in the browser address bar.

Example: coolexample.com is forwarding with masking to the destination URL happy-fox.com. When visitors go to coolexample.com, they'll be automatically redirected to happy-fox.com, and the browser address bar will show the forwarded domain, coolexample.com.

Masking is a popular option when you want to keep your domain in the browser address bar and you aren't concerned about SEO or search engine results. Search engines don't index any information about the destination URL or retain any previous details from your domain after setting up masking. Instead, you'll need to provide specific meta-tags for search engines to read, including a title, description and keywords that'll be associated with your domain. Since there isn't a specific website to index, the overall search engine ranking performance for your domain won't be as good as a 301 or 302 redirect.

Some destination URLs don't support masking, which could lead to visitors seeing a blank white screen instead of the destination website. This is controlled by the destination URL and isn't something GoDaddy is able to solve, unfortunately. If you encounter this issue, the only way to fix it is to change your forwarding type to a 301 or 302 redirect.

Learn more about forwarding with masking in our How-To video.

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Forwarding over HTTPS

Forwarding over HTTPS is now available on all forwarded domains. In the past, we've allowed forwarding to sites protected by SSLs, but a user's initial connection to the forwarded domain was not protected by an SSL. However, it's becoming common for browsers to default to an HTTPS connection regardless of the destination. Forwarding over HTTPS allows us to make this connection immediately to provide enhanced security and reliability. It's an additional feature we'll apply automatically when you set up new forwarding or edit existing forwarding at no extra cost to you.

Internet browsers emphasize the importance of secure connections over HTTPS because it helps ensure greater security and performance while navigating the web. Browsers will automatically attempt to connect to a domain name over HTTPS if you don't specify the connection type. For example, if you enter google.com in your browser, it will automatically attempt to connect to https://google.com. If the browser can't connect over HTTPS, it'll redirect to HTTP. This additional redirect takes longer to process and increases load times, as well as doubling the chance that something will fail while making the connection.

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