How to redirect a domain to another domain over HTTPS

You own a domain you do not want to host — an old company name, a spelling people get wrong, a brand you retired — and you want everyone who arrives to end up on your real site instead.

Forwarding the traffic is easy. Doing it over HTTPS is the part that catches people out, because a browser checks the certificate for the domain before it reads your redirect. A domain that does nothing but forward still needs a valid certificate in its own name.

What you need first

• The domain, and the ability to sign in wherever its DNS is managed — usually the registrar you bought it from.
• The address you want visitors to land on.
• An HTTPSredirect account. The free plan covers one domain, certificate included, and never asks for a credit card.

The three steps

1. Add the domain to your account

   Create an account and enter the domain you want to redirect. The free plan covers one domain, and needs no credit card.

2. Point the domain at our servers

   At your registrar, create an A record for the root of the domain with the value 47.206.179.19. That is the only DNS change the redirect needs.

3. Choose the destination and redirect type

   Enter the URL visitors should land on and pick a permanent (301) or temporary (302) redirect. We then obtain a certificate for your domain, install it and keep it renewed.

Adding the domain

Create an account and enter the domain — just the name, with no http:// and no path. The dashboard then shows you the DNS record to add, and waits for it to appear.

The free plan covers one domain. Plus, at $5 a month, covers ten and adds advanced URL redirects, a redirect counter and dedicated phone support. Pro, at $15 a month, covers twenty-five and adds analytics and hands-off DNS setup. The www version of your domain is included free on every plan; any other subdomain — shop.example.com, say — counts as one of your domains.

Pointing the DNS at us

This is the one change you make outside our dashboard. At your registrar, create an A record for the root of the domain:

If you want www to redirect as well, the dashboard also shows a CNAME record pointing www at your root domain. It is optional, and it does not count against your domain limit.

When the record is saved, press Check DNS in the dashboard. That is what moves the domain on to the last step.

Choosing the destination

Enter the address visitors should end up on, and pick whether we send them to the https:// or http:// version of it. Choose HTTPS unless the destination genuinely has no certificate — if it does not, visitors will simply get the warning one hop later, on a site we do not serve and cannot fix.

Paths carry over. With example.com redirecting to example.net, a visitor arriving at example.com/contact lands on example.net/contact.

Then choose the redirect type: permanent (301) or temporary (302). If you are moving for good, that is a 301 — and it is worth knowing that browsers cache a 301 hard, which makes it awkward to undo. The difference between the two is worth two minutes before you pick one.

On Plus and Pro you can go further: advanced URL redirects match a specific source URL to a specific destination, with options for wildcards and for passing query strings through. That is how you send /old-pricing somewhere other than /old-pricing.

What happens on our side

Once the A record points at us, we request a certificate for your domain from Let’s Encrypt. The validation happens over HTTP, on your domain, against our server — which is exactly why the DNS has to point at us before a certificate can exist.

We install the certificate, start answering HTTPS on your domain, and return your redirect to anyone who asks. Renewal is automatic and repeats for as long as the domain points at us. Certificates from Let’s Encrypt are short-lived by design, so the renewal is the part you would otherwise have to remember every couple of months.

Checking that it worked

Open your domain in a private or incognito window — a normal window may still be holding an old answer. You should land on your destination, and see a padlock in the address bar. Check the www version too, if you set it up.

curl -sI https://example.com

If it is not working