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URL Redirection

URL redirection is an extremely useful service aimed at helping users point their domains or subdomains to certain URLs when necessary. This is usually needed in cases when a certain website is no longer available under its original domain name when all users linking to it need to be automatically informed of this update. Thus, the URL redirection functionality helps domain owners preserve the relevance of the incoming links to their websites.

What is URL Redirection?

The URL redirection service is also popular as URL redirect, URL redirecting, URL forwarding, domain redirection and domain forwarding. In all of the cases it refers to one and the same web technique for pointing a web page to another URL of your choice.

Why set URL Redirection to a web page?

Let's say you are about to change the domain name of your website with a more search-engine optimized one, so that it would be much easier for you to popularize your web presence to your target audience from now on. However, what will happen to all inbound links to your old domain from external pages, as well as to the bookmark links set by users in their browsers for faster access to your website? Those links will surely lose their relevance as soon as the domain has been changed.

This is exactly where you need to apply a URL redirection, so that all incoming links to an outdated URL could be automatically sent to the correct destination. Moreover, this will also update search engines on the applied URL changes to prevent search users from ending up at the incorrect location of your website.

Basic URL Redirection Types

Depending on the type of URL update you need to make for domains or subdomains of yours, you could take advantage of 4 basic types of URL Redirection:

  • Permanent redirection: 301 – this URL redirection is used in cases when the URL for a certain website/web page has been changed for a long-term period. Its main purpose is to automatically redirect any references to the outdated URL of a certain page to its new web address. Through the 301 redirect website owners can preserve the relevance of any existing external links to their store.

  • Temporary redirection: 302 – you will need a 302 redirection in cases when a certain URL has been changed to a different address temporarily. The 302 redirect tells anyone trying to access a certain URL that it is temporarily unavailable and automatically send them to a new valid address. With the 302 redirection set, the owner asks users to continue using the new address until modified at a later time.

  • Redirection: 303 – in contrast to the 301 and 302 redirects, the 303 redirect is not used for making a substitute reference for the originally requested URL. Its main purpose is to redirect a certain URL request to another URL, which is not a substitute of the originally requested source, but a separate web page. This redirect is often used by e-commerce stores for redirecting visitors to a 'Thank you' page after filling in an order page.

  • Gone status code: 410 – this redirection status is used when a certain web page has been removed on purpose and the users need to be informed that its URL is permanently unavailable and no substitute reference is necessary for it. Thus, all incoming request to this URL will receive a response that the requested page does not exist anymore.

URL Redirection with NTC Hosting

Making URL redirections has been made incredibly easy with the URL Redirector integrated into the Control Panel of all web hosting plans offered on this website. You can easily redirect a specific web folder to another URL. Simply choose a domain or subdomain that you want to apply URL redirection for and then specify the exact path that will be redirected.

Then choose an HTTP Status code (i.e. Redirection Type) and type in the URL that the traffic to the specified path will be redirected to. After submitting the form the 'URL Redirect' tool will automatically create the selected redirection and will provide a convenient option for you to easily edit or remove it, if necessary.