How do I host a redirect?

Hello,

I work with an online school that hosts their .com Google domain on Webflow with a Website CMS Plan. They also own the a corresponding .org through Google.

The .com is primarily used for marketing purposes; the .org used only to provision school staff & students with email accounts. Students had noticed that when they tried to access the .org URL in their browsers that they are told “This site can’t be reached.”

The school has asked me to research cost effective means to establish a redirect from the .org to the .com. Currently, the .org domain is - as far as I can tell - not hosted. Upon inspection of my browser’s Network tool, loading the page does indeed result in the error: “(failed) net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED”

An initial glance at the .org’s Google::Admin > Account > Domains > Manage Domains > Actions::Set up redirect sure reads like it would be pretty straightforward to implement, however, my “too good to be true” Spider-senses are tingling… and methinks we would first need to host the .org domain.

  1. Does this sound right?
  2. Is hosting the .org an option in our current Website CMS plan?
  3. If additional domain hosting requires extra features - any idea what the price bump would be?
  4. If this can be done affordably, does Webflow support managing the redirects? Would there be any options e.g. to have a redirect message displayed?

I do recall a time when I could drop this into the HTML header:

<script>
window.location.replace("http://schooldomain.com");
</script>

…but I would imagine we’re past those days. And even if that still works, my hunch tells me we need to host the .org domain first.

Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you :slight_smile:

All you need to do is to;

  • add schooldomain.org to your Webflow hosted site’s domain names.
  • add the A and CNAME and TXT records to your schooldomain.org DNS. These will not affect your email provisioning.
  • make certain you have a primary domain set in Webflow, probably www.schooldomain.com
  • Republish

Your website will answer to both domains with all traffic redirecting to the .com.

1 Like

Thanks so much @memetican !

Re:

  • add schooldomain.org to your Webflow hosted site’s domain names.

Is this something I do through Webflow::Dashboard > Publishing > Production > Add custom domain?

Any idea if I should use www.schooldomain.org version, or the root schooldomain.org?

Both?

  • add the A and CNAME and TXT records to your schooldomain.org DNS. These will not affect your email provisioning.

i.e. copy these from the .com and add them to the .org records in the DNS?

I am looking into obtaining these - though they appears no longer available directly through the Google Domains registrar (per About the Squarespace purchase of Google Domains registrations - Google Domains Help)

I am not very familiar nor practiced with the ways and means of DNS registry, but I do understand that these are the Address, Canonical Name, and Text records respectively.

I really appreciate your succinct breakdown of what’s involved!

:crossed_fingers:

  • make certain you have a primary domain set in Webflow, probably www.schooldomain.com

indeed - www.schooldomain.com is the defualt domain (and the root schooldomain.com is included.)

  • Republish

Hopefully soon - thank you again for the help

Correct

Just add the base domain, it will add both.

Yes-ish. Use the ones Webflow indicates, they may be different in particular the TXT record.

1 Like

Just checking back here - had to focus on other things for this client, but I plan on marking memetician’s answer as the accepted solution once I implement :slight_smile:

Thanks again for all your guidance on this issue - I’m finally able to get back to this.

Per the Webflow::Dashboard > Publishing > Production > “Add custom domain” instructions to verify the domain name:

…the “one-time-verification” values are identical. I am configuring the settings in domains.google.com/ registrar/schooldomain.org and just wanted to make sure - do I only need to enter the one-time-verification once?

Asking cuz the way Webflow presents it is per

… but I only have the one “schooldomain.org” registrar > DNS config panel.

Possibly, will I need to verify them one at a time and add the “one time” code for each verification :thinking: (Update: clicking a single “Verify Domain” appears to have verified both at the same time :sweat_smile:)

Thanks!

Note to self: the “@” fields should be left blank, and both "A"type configs should be combined into one by using the “+ Add more to this record option”

Looks like that did the trick @memetican - thanks so much!

1 Like