Creating Redirects in cPanel

 

How to redirect one web page or site to another in your cPanel web hosting control panel

 

You must first log into your cPanel hosting control panel - if you have lost or forgotten your username and/or password, you must email support and ask for the details (lost passwords will mean a password reset).

Redirects are a method of pointing requests for a web page or site to another page or site. They can be permanent or temporary and often are essential for ensuring that visitors and search engines see the right content for the requested page or site.

Once logged in, we will proceed with creating a redirect in your cPanel.

video tutorial - how to create Redirections in cPanel view the cPanel Redirects video tutorial

 

 

First, click on the Redirects icon add redirect icon in the Preferences section

 

Once we are at the Redirects page in cPanel, we will see the Add Redirect: section where we will provide details of what we want to redirect and where to.

Permanent or Temporary Redirect

Note the first drop down box - we are asked if the redirect is to be Permanent (301) or Temporary (302). A permanent redirect is important for search engines when your redirected page is not going to be available ever again - it will tell search engines that the page is going to be permanently replaced by the page to which it is being redirected to by using the permanent redirect code 301, search engines will normally respond by removing the redirected page and replacing it with the page that it is being redirected to. A temporary redirect will inform traffic agents (i.e. web browsers, search engines) that this is only a temporary redirection and as such they should return to this initial location again in the future.

Adding a Redirect in cPanel

Following the example of the cPanel Redirects video tutorial above, we are going to add a permanent redirect of brandingeditor.com/forum to brandingeditor.com/newhome/. So, in the next drop down box titled http://(www.)? we will select the domain from the drop down list of the redirected URL. The drop down list will list all domains that you have hosted on your account. You will not be able to redirect any URL that is of a domain that is not hosted in your web hosting account. In this example we select brandingeditor.com from the drop down list.

Now in the entry box to the right of the domain we enter the folder or file names that we are redirecting, in this example we enter the folder name forum.

Now we need to provide details of where the folder or file is to be redirected to. So move down to the next entry box titled redirects to→ http:// and enter the full URL (excluding the http://part) of the other page or folder. In this example we enter brandingeditor.com/newhome/

Next, we come to the Wild Card Redirect check box. Wild card redirects (if set) will redirect all requests for any files within the redirected directory to the same filename in the directory to which they are being redirected to. We want that to happen in this example so we check this box by clicking on it with the cursor.

Now click on the Add button and the redirect will be written into your .htaccess file. We will now arrive at a confirmation page which shows the redirected URL and the URL of the page or folder receiving requests for the redirected page or folder. Click the Go Back link to add more redirects.

Once redirects are added in this fashion, they will come into effect immediately. Please ensure that you test any redirects that you add by typing the URL of the redirected page into your browser.