Redirecting URLs on your site

URL redirects send visitors from one URL to another. Use them when you've moved pages, changed domain structure, or want short URLs to expand into longer ones.

In the portal

1. Go to Services → click your hosting → Redirects tile.
2. Click Add redirect.
3. Configure:
   • Type — Permanent (301) or Temporary (302).
   • Source URL or path — what's being redirected from.
   • Destination URL — where it goes.
   • Domain — if you have multiple domains on the account, pick which one this rule applies to.
4. Save.

The rule takes effect immediately. Behind the scenes, the portal writes an entry to your .htaccess.

301 vs 302

• 301 Permanent — search engines treat the new URL as canonical and transfer SEO ranking from old to new. Use for permanent moves.
• 302 Temporary — search engines keep the old URL indexed and don't pass ranking. Use for actual temporary redirects (maintenance pages, A/B testing, seasonal content).

When in doubt, use 301. Temporary redirects that should have been permanent are a common SEO mistake.

Common redirect scenarios

Force HTTPS

Already done automatically on managed plans, but if you want to verify:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

Redirect entire domain to another

olddomain.com → newdomain.com:

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

The $1 preserves the path — olddomain.com/about redirects to newdomain.com/about.

Redirect old URLs to new structure

If you renamed /blog/ to /articles/:

RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)$ /articles/$1 [L,R=301]

Redirect a single page

For one-off moves, the portal's redirect tool is simpler than .htaccess. Source: /old-page.html → Destination: /new-page.html. Done.

www to non-www (or vice versa)

Pick one canonical version of your domain:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{1}/$1 [L,R=301]

This forces all www.yourdomain.com traffic to yourdomain.com. Reverse the logic to force www. instead.

Order matters

Redirects in .htaccess are processed top to bottom. Put more specific rules first:

# Specific rule (matches /old-blog-post)
RewriteRule ^old-blog-post$ /new-post [L,R=301]

# General rule (matches /blog/anything)
RewriteRule ^blog/(.*)$ /articles/$1 [L,R=301]

If you put the general rule first, the specific rule never gets reached.

Testing your redirects

After saving a redirect:

1. Hit the source URL in your browser. You should land at the destination.
2. Check the response code — use browser developer tools → Network tab. You should see a 301 (or 302) on the source URL.
3. Test in incognito to bypass any cached redirects.

For programmatic testing:

curl -I https://yourdomain.com/old-page

The response should be HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently with a Location: https://yourdomain.com/new-page header.

Avoiding redirect chains

A redirect chain is when URL A redirects to B which redirects to C. Each hop adds latency and search engines penalize long chains.

When you change a redirect target, update the source rule directly rather than redirecting through an intermediate:

• Bad: /old → /interim → /current (three hops).
• Good: /old → /current (one hop).

When you have multiple redirects ending at the same destination, audit them periodically to remove chains.

Removing redirects

Same Redirects tile in the portal: click the trash icon on the rule. The redirect stops immediately; visitors hitting the source URL now see whatever's actually at that URL (the original page, or a 404 if it's been removed).

Power-user note

For complex routing — pattern matching, conditional rewrites, header-based logic — edit .htaccess directly via the file manager. Apache mod_rewrite is the standard tool, deeply documented across the web. The portal's redirect tool covers the common cases; .htaccess covers everything else.