Spare names · Redirects · 5 minutes
How to set up domain forwarding — Making a Spare Name Land Somewhere Useful
A forwarded name that has no certificate does not forward — it shows a security warning and stops there.
The short answer
Forwarding sends everyone who types one name to another address, and it needs three things in sequence: DNS pointing the spare name at something that will answer, a valid certificate on that spare name, and a redirect rule saying where to send them.
Most broken forwards are missing the middle one. The browser has to complete an encrypted handshake with the spare name before any redirect can be issued, so a name without a certificate produces a warning page rather than an arrival.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
Beginner
Level assumed
5 minutes
Budget for it
5
Stages, start to finish
24/7
Support, at any hour
This is the job you do with the misspellings, the sibling ending and the name from the old brand. Each of them is a name you already pay for, and each one is currently doing nothing.
Five minutes per name, and the same five minutes each time once you have done the first.
A forward is not a DNS record
DNS can only say where a name points. It cannot say go somewhere else instead. A redirect is an HTTP response, which means a web server has to accept the connection, look at the request and answer with a status code and a destination. Something has to be listening for that to happen at all.
So the sequence is always the same: point the spare name at hosting, add it to the account so the server recognises it, then create the rule. Skipping the middle step gives you a name that resolves to a server which has never heard of it, and the visitor gets whatever default page that server shows strangers.
The certificate comes before the redirect
Anyone typing https, and anyone whose browser upgrades them to it silently, has to complete the TLS handshake with the spare name first. The handshake needs a certificate that covers that exact name. Without one the browser stops and shows a warning, and your redirect — perfectly configured, sitting one step further on — never runs.
Certificates here issue automatically once the name points at the platform, including for names that exist only to redirect. Give issuance a few minutes after DNS lands, then test the https version specifically. If a preload or HSTS policy is in play on the destination, the https path is the only one many visitors will ever take.
301 or 302, and what happens to the path
A 301 says permanent: visitors are sent on, and search engines transfer the bulk of the ranking signals to the destination over the following weeks. A 302 says temporary and leaves the original name's standing where it is. Brand protection, misspellings and retired names all want a 301; a seasonal campaign name might not.
Then decide what happens to the rest of the address. Path-preserving forwarding sends oldname.com/pricing to newname.com/pricing. Bare forwarding drops everyone on the homepage regardless of what they asked for, which is the version that quietly wastes every link anybody ever published to a deep page.
The spare name still has mail to think about
Forwarding the web traffic does nothing for messages. If anybody has ever been given an address at the spare name, it needs MX records of its own or a forwarder set up, or those messages will bounce — and with no MX record at all, sending servers fall back to the address in the A record, which means mail arrives at a web server and disappears without a trace.
For a name nobody has ever used for mail, publishing a null MX record is the tidy answer: it tells sending servers plainly that this name accepts no mail, so senders get an immediate rejection rather than a message that vanishes.
The name and the mailboxes in the same panel
Mailboxes answer at the name you hold, with webmail, IMAP, POP and SMTP, so a DNS change and a mail change are handled in one place rather than argued between two suppliers.
Support means a person at any hour, and the remit covers the awkward practical questions other hosts hand straight back.
- Every step checked against the live panel
- The trap named before you reach it
- What the clock is doing, at every stage
- Support that answers mid-job, not next week
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
The order that actually works
DNS, then the account, then the certificate, then the rule — set out in sequence, because doing it in any other order produces a warning page.
Certificates for names with no site
A redirect-only name still needs a certificate, and it issues by itself here once the name points at the platform.
301 against 302, decided on purpose
What each status does to the original name's standing, and which one a brand-protection name should carry.
The path preserved
Deep links kept intact instead of everybody being dropped on a homepage to find their own way.
Mail on the spare name handled
What happens to messages sent to a forwarded name, and the record that answers the question cleanly.
Five minutes, then five minutes each
The first name takes five minutes and every one after it takes the same five, which is why the whole portfolio is one sitting.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Point the spare name at the platform
Give it the same nameserver pair the main name uses, or an A record aimed here if its DNS must stay elsewhere. Until the name resolves to a server that will answer for it, there is nothing for a redirect to run on.
- 2
Add the name to the account
In cPanel, add it under Aliases or as a domain of its own, so the web server recognises the name instead of treating the request as a stranger. This is the step people skip, and it is why a correctly pointed name shows a default page.
- 3
Wait for the certificate, then check https
Issuance follows DNS automatically, usually within a few minutes. Load the https version of the spare name and confirm you get a padlock rather than a warning, because no redirect will ever run in front of a failed handshake.
- 4
Write the rule, permanent and path-preserving
Use cPanel's Redirects screen, or a .htaccess rule if you would rather write it yourself. Choose 301 for anything permanent, and keep the path so oldname.com/pricing lands on the matching page rather than the homepage.
- 5
Test all four ways in, and settle the mail
http and https, each with www and without, then one deep URL. While you are there, decide what the spare name does about messages: real MX records, a forwarder, or a null MX saying it accepts none.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old certificate lapses
- Full zone control — A, CNAME, MX and TXT — from the panel
- Mailboxes that answer at the name you hold
- No set-up charge at any point, and no joining fee
- Renewals billed at the figure you registered at
- cPanel, which is what most of the industry already runs
- A daily copy, with restores you run yourself from the panel
- People on the support desk every hour of every day
- 99.9% uptime as the target, watched around the clock
- Money back within 30 days on hosting plans, 7 on reseller
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Why does my forwarded name show a security warning?
Because the browser has to complete an encrypted handshake with that name before it can be sent anywhere, and there is no certificate covering it. Point the name at the platform, add it to the account, and let the certificate issue — the redirect works from that moment, unchanged.
Can a name be forwarded without hosting it anywhere?
Something has to answer the request: hosting, a registrar's own forwarding feature, or a dedicated redirect service. Here it comes with the hosting, and names parked on any plan can redirect as much as you like at no extra cost.
Should a forwarded name keep MX records?
If anyone has ever been given an address at it, yes. With no MX record at all, sending servers fall back to the A record and the message arrives at a web server, which discards it silently. For a name that has never carried mail, a null MX record makes the refusal explicit and gives senders a clear bounce.
Does the redirect pass search value to the destination?
A permanent redirect passes on the bulk of it over the weeks and months that follow, which is why every well-run domain migration relies on one. Leave the redirect running indefinitely rather than treating it as scaffolding to be taken down once things look settled.
Keep reading
Web Hosting
Web hosting where every name on the account gets its own certificate automatically.
Node.js Hosting
Node.js hosting with the spare names, the redirects and the certificates on one login.
Changing provider? Work through this checklist beforehand.
A straightforward running order for a migration your visitors never spot: which files travel first, how to bring the mail across without dropping a single message, the right moment to repoint DNS, and the two errors that sit behind almost every outage we get called in to fix.
Put the spare names to work.
Free SSL, a free migration, full zone control from the panel, and support that answers while the change is still landing.
View Web Hosting plans