How to redirect a domain to another website with a 301

To send visitors of one domain name to another website automatically, you set up a 301 redirect. With LJPc hosting you can do that in three ways: with the forwarding package (Doorstuurpakket) in the customer portal, with a domain alias in Plesk, or with a few lines in an .htaccess file. The right choice mostly depends on one question: should the whole domain go to one website, or do you want to send individual pages to their own new page?

Which redirect method fits your situation?

With all three, the path after the domain name is passed on unless you set it up differently: yourdomain.com/contact lands on newdomain.com/contact. If your new website uses the same page URLs, that works straight away. If pages get new URLs, read the .htaccess section as well.

301 or 302: which redirect should you use?

A 301 redirect means "moved permanently". Search engines such as Google pass the value of the old URL on to the new one and, over time, show only the new URL. A 302 redirect means "temporarily somewhere else", so the old URL stays in the search results. When you move a domain for good, always use a 301. The forwarding package and a domain alias with the 301 option do this for you.

Redirect with the forwarding package in the customer portal

The forwarding package is a small package that only redirects. Visitors to your domain are sent with a 301 to the address you enter, with and without www, including everything after the domain name. It costs € 1 per month or € 12 per year, excluding VAT.

Order a forwarding package for a new or external domain

1. Log in to the customer portal.
2. On the dashboard, under Find your domain, search for the domain name you want to register. If you already own the domain, choose I already have a domain and only need hosting.
3. In the hosting step, open the DNS only or forwarding tab and pick the forwarding package.
4. Enter the full address the domain should redirect to, for example https://www.newdomain.com/.
5. Complete the order in the cart.

If you register or transfer the domain in the same order, we take care of the DNS for you. If you keep the domain with another provider, you set the DNS records there; which ones are listed in how to point a domain registered elsewhere to LJPc hosting.

A forwarding package for a domain with DNS management only

1. Choose Services and then Domains in the menu, and click the domain.
2. In the Hosting for this domain block, click View packages.
3. Click Order next to the forwarding package, enter the new address under Forward to and confirm the order.

With this route, the portal does not change the domain's DNS records for you. If you know which records are needed, update them as described in how to manage DNS records. Not sure? Create a support ticket and we will help you set the records.

Change the destination later

1. Choose Services and then Sites in the menu, and click the redirected domain.
2. In the Site overview block, click Change next to Forwarded to.
3. Enter the new address and click Save. The change is live within a few minutes.

After setting it up, also test the address with https:// in front of it. For https, the forwarding domain needs its own certificate. If you see a certificate warning instead of your new website, create a support ticket and we will fix it for you.

A domain alias in Plesk with a 301 redirect

A domain alias is an extra name for a website in your hosting package. With the 301 option switched on, the alias sends visitors to your primary domain, again including the path. Without that option, the alias shows the same website under a second name. Search engines then see two websites with identical content, so always switch the 301 on.

1. Open Plesk from the customer portal, as described in how to open Plesk from the customer portal.
2. Go to Websites & Domains and click Add Domain Alias.
3. Enter the extra domain and select your website as the primary domain.
4. Tick Web service and Redirect with the HTTP 301 code. Leave Synchronize DNS zone with the primary domain on if the domain uses the LJPc name servers.
5. Only tick Mail service if email to the extra domain should arrive in your existing mailboxes. Mail to info@yourdomain.net then arrives in the info@yourdomain.com mailbox.
6. Save the alias.

If you do not see Add Domain Alias, or Plesk says the limit has been reached, your package has no room for domain aliases. Use the forwarding package instead.

The extra domain does need to point to your hosting package. If its DNS is managed separately in the customer portal, point its A and AAAA records to the same address as your website (see how to manage DNS records). If the domain is registered elsewhere, follow how to point a domain registered elsewhere to LJPc hosting.

For https, add the alias to your website's certificate. In Plesk, open SSL/TLS Certificates for your website, click Reissue Certificate and tick the alias domain, together with the www option. More about certificates in Let's Encrypt: free SSL certificate setup.

Redirect with .htaccess: a destination for every page

With an .htaccess file you decide which old page goes to which new page. The old domain needs its own hosting package for this, because the file lives in the httpdocs folder of that domain. These rules work on all our servers, whether your website runs on LiteSpeed or Apache. How to create and safely edit the file in Plesk is explained in set up .htaccess: redirects, security and more.

Redirect the whole domain

Put these lines in the .htaccess of the old domain and replace www.newdomain.com with the address of your new website:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The $1 carries over everything after the domain name, and any query string after the question mark is passed on automatically. This works with and without www, and for both http and https.

Send individual pages to a new URL

If pages on your new website have different URLs, add one rule per page first and the catch-all rule below them:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^about-us/?$ https://www.newdomain.com/about/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^services/web-design/?$ https://www.newdomain.com/web-design/ [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The first part of each rule is the old path, without a leading slash. The /? makes the rule work with and without a trailing slash. Do not send all old pages to the home page of your new website: Google treats that as a page that no longer exists. Redirect every important page to the new page with the same content.

Using the forwarding package or a domain alias while your pages get new URLs? Then visitors arrive on your new website with the old path. Put the page rules in the .htaccess of your new website, with only the path as the destination, for example RewriteRule ^about-us/?$ /about/ [R=301,L]. If your new website runs on WordPress, place the rules above # BEGIN WordPress or use a redirect plugin.

Watch out with copied rules

Online and on other websites you will often see a line like RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^yourdomain\.com$ [NC] above the RewriteRule. The exclamation mark means "not". If you put that line on the old domain with that domain's own name in it, only the www version redirects and yourdomain.com itself stays where it is. A domain that only redirects needs no RewriteCond at all.

If a WordPress website still runs on the old domain, put your own rules above the line # BEGIN WordPress. The hosting package gets a free certificate automatically as soon as the old domain points to us, so https:// on the old domain redirects cleanly too.

Moving your website to a new domain: the right order

1. New domain and website ready. Register the new domain name (see how to register a domain and link it to your hosting) and check that your website works on the new address, with https.
2. List of old URLs. Write down the most important pages of your old website, for example from the sitemap or Google Search Console.
3. Set up the redirect. If the page URLs stay the same, the forwarding package is enough. If they change, use page rules.
4. Test. Open a few old URLs and check that you land on the right new page (see below).
5. Tell Google. If you own both domains in Google Search Console, use the Change of Address tool under Settings. Google then picks up the move faster.
6. Keep it running. Keep the redirect and the registration of the old domain for at least a year, and longer while visitors still arrive through the old domain. That way old links in emails, on social media and in print keep working too.

How to test your redirect

Your browser remembers a 301. Test in a private window, or you may still see an old result. Check four variants each time: with and without www, and with http:// and https://. Then try a deeper URL, such as yourdomain.com/contact.

On the command line, curl -I https://yourdomain.com/contact shows exactly what the server sends back. The first line shows 301 and the location line shows the new address. While you are still trying out .htaccess rules, use R=302 for a while and switch to R=301 once everything works, so browsers do not hold on to an in-between version.

What about email on the old domain?

A website redirect only sends visitors on, not email. If you want to keep receiving mail on the old domain, set that up separately: with a domain alias with Mail service, with mailboxes on the old domain, or with email forwarding to another address. If you stop using email on the old domain, save the mail in it first. How to do that is explained in close a mailbox without losing your email.