Redirect Domains 101: What Are They, Pros & Cons, and How to Set up Redirects

Redirect Domain: Companies deploy various strategies to boost website traffic and increase page hits in their quest for online success. One powerful option they often turn to is Domain Redirect.

In any marketing campaign, the number of people clicking through to your site is vital. It can be a major bottleneck affecting the ROI of your PPC, email, and social campaigns.

When it comes to maximising clicks, you have a range of tools at your disposal, including compelling copy, attention-grabbing imagery, and precise targeting. However, don’t overlook the importance of the URLs you use in your campaign for optimising user acquisition.

A redirect domain is a domain name that has been configured to redirect visitors to a different website when typed into a browser. For example, a domain like Videos.com could be set up to instantly redirect users to YouTube.com when entered.

Redirect domains provide several unique benefits compared to using regular website domains:

• Convenience: They create shortcuts to longer or harder-to-remember URLs. This improves usability for return visitors.
• Branding: Short, brandable domains like Green.com can redirect to companysites rather than hard to remember real URLs.
• Tracking: Tools can track traffic and clicks before redirecting, unlike normal domains.
• SEO: Aged domains with backlinks can pass equity and authority to sites they redirect to.

While any domain can technically redirect elsewhere, brands and marketers purposefully purchase expired domains or premium domains for dedicated redirecting purposes. The domains are configured at the registrar DNS level or web hosting level to take visitors to a target destination instantly.

The tailored redirection functionality and ability to enhance branding, analytics and sometimes SEO explains the appeal of redirect domains above standard site domains in certain use cases.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is a Redirect Domain?

A domain redirect is when you set up a URL on one website so that when someone clicks on it, they are directed to a different site. For instance, if you change the domain of your website, you need to redirect every page to the new address.

When a user clicks on a link with a domain redirect, their browser receives an instruction to move on to another page.

In addition to changing the domain of your site, this has several uses. For instance, many companies buy several domains which are similar to their primary site.

This means that when someone misspells their actual address, they can be redirected to the correct site.

Additionally, it’s common to buy additional domains to use in marketing campaigns, either because they are more eye-catching or succinct than your primary site’s domain. We’ll return to this a little later.

But first, let’s look a little closer at the theory behind domain redirects.

Selecting the Ideal Domain

To optimise your online presence, the choice of the perfect domain name is paramount. Let’s delve into the details:

1. Conduct Comprehensive Research:
   • Commence by conducting thorough research into your brand, industry, and target audience. Gain a deep understanding of your business’s core values, mission, and unique selling points.
   • Identify keywords or phrases that resonate with your products, services, or niche. These keywords should mirror what potential customers are searching for online.
   • Examine the domain names used by your competitors to gather insights into naming conventions commonly employed within your industry.
2. Memorability and Ease of Spelling:
   • A domain name should be easy to remember. Simplicity is often the key. Avoid lengthy, complex, or convoluted domain names that are prone to being forgotten.
   • Take into consideration the ease of spelling. Complicated or unconventional spellings can lead to confusion, making it more challenging for people to locate your website when conducting direct searches.
3. Relevance of Domain Extension:
   • The domain extension, also known as a top-level domain (TLD), is the suffix at the end of your domain name, such as .com, .co.uk, or .org.uk.
   • Opt for an extension that aligns with your business’s location and purpose. For UK-based businesses, .co.uk is often preferred, as it denotes a local presence.
   • If your business operates on a global scale, .com is a popular choice due to its universal appeal. You may also consider other extensions like .org, .net, or industry-specific ones.
   • Keep in mind that certain domain extensions may have specific restrictions, so it’s important to verify availability and eligibility for your desired choice.

Track and Analyse Results

1. Web Analytics:
   • Utilise web analytics tools like Google Analytics to closely monitor the performance of your redirected domain.
   • Keep a watchful eye on key metrics such as traffic volume, bounce rate, and conversion rate to assess how effectively the domain redirect is functioning.
2. User Behaviour Analysis:
   • Dive into user behaviour data on the new domain to glean insights into how visitors interact with your website. Identify areas where enhancements can be made to augment user engagement and conversion rates.

Share and Promote

1. Multi-Channel Promotion:
   • Promote your new domain across an array of marketing channels, encompassing social media platforms, email marketing campaigns, and targeted online advertising.
   • Consistency in messaging and branding across these channels serves to reinforce the presence of your new domain.
2. Educational Content:
   • Create informative and engaging content that elucidates the domain redirect to your audience. Clarify the reasons underpinning the change and emphasise the benefits users can anticipate from the new domain.
3. Targeted Ad Campaigns:
   • Contemplate running targeted ad campaigns to propel initial traffic to your new domain, particularly during the transitional phase. This can serve as a catalyst for your website’s traffic and engagement.

Optimise for SEO

1. Incorporate Relevant Keywords:
   • Integrate keywords that are pertinent to your business, products, or services into your new domain name. This enhances its search engine visibility by signalling its relevance to specific search queries.
   • Carefully select keywords that are not only relevant but also possess a healthy search volume and moderate competition. This ensures that your domain is optimised effectively for SEO.
2. Use Hyphens or Underscores:
   • If required, utilise hyphens or underscores to separate keywords within your domain name. This can enhance readability and comprehension for both users and search engines.
   • Nevertheless, exercise caution not to overdo it, as an excess of hyphens or underscores can make your domain seem spammy and less user-friendly.
3. Avoid Lengthy and Complex Names:
   • Simplicity is paramount. Short and concise domain names are easier for users to remember and input into their browsers.
   • Elongated and intricate domain names can lead to user errors and decrease the likelihood of direct traffic.

Track and Analyse Results

1. Utilise web analytics tools like Google Analytics to closely monitor the performance of your redirected domain. These tools provide a wealth of data that can help you gauge the effectiveness of your domain redirect strategy.
2. Monitor metrics such as:
   • Traffic Volume: Keep track of the number of visitors to your new domain. A noticeable increase in traffic can be an early indicator of success.
   • Bounce Rate: Analyse the bounce rate to see if visitors are leaving your site quickly. A high bounce rate may suggest that users are not finding what they expected.
   • Conversion Rate: Measure how many visitors are taking desired actions, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form. A rise in conversion rate indicates the effectiveness of your new domain.
3. User Behaviour Analysis:
   • Dive into user behaviour data on the new domain to glean insights into how visitors interact with your website. Identify areas where enhancements can be made to augment user engagement and conversion rates.

Share and Promote

1. Multi-Channel Promotion:
   • Promote your new domain across an array of marketing channels, encompassing social media platforms, email marketing campaigns, and targeted online advertising.
   • Consistency in messaging and branding across these channels serves to reinforce the presence of your new domain.
2. Educational Content:
   • Create informative and engaging content that elucidates the domain redirect to your audience. Clarify the reasons underpinning the change and emphasise the benefits users can anticipate from the new domain.
3. Targeted Ad Campaigns:
   • Contemplate running targeted ad campaigns to propel initial traffic to your new domain, particularly during the transitional phase. This can serve as a catalyst for your website’s traffic and engagement.

Harness the Power of Trust

1. Leverage Established Reputation:
   • If your old domain boasts a well-established positive reputation, leverage this trust to cultivate confidence with your audience regarding the domain redirect.
   • Spotlight your track record of dependability and provision of high-quality services to assure users of a seamless transition.
2. Transparent Communication:
   • Clearly communicate the motives behind the domain redirect to your audience. Emphasise the improvements and advantages it brings, such as an enhanced user experience or improved services.
3. Brand Consistency:
   • Ensure that all content and branding elements on the new domain are aligned with the trust and expectations you’ve cultivated on the old one. Consistency in branding and messaging contributes to the preservation of credibility.

Engage Your Audience

1. Valuable Content:
   • Create high-quality, valuable content on the new domain to captivate and maintain visitor interest. Provide information, insights, or solutions that resonate with your target audience.
2. Interactive Elements:
   • Incorporate interactive elements like quizzes, polls, forums, or comment sections to encourage user participation and engagement. This can foster a sense of community around your content.
3. Effective CTAs:
   • Employ clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs) strategically placed throughout your site to guide users towards desired actions, whether it’s making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or contacting your business.

Measure the Impact

1. Continuous Monitoring:
   • Sustain ongoing monitoring of the impact of the domain redirect on your marketing campaigns. Regularly assess how it influences your website’s performance and user engagement.
2. Comparative Analysis:
   • Compare performance metrics before and after the domain redirect. This comparative analysis yields insights into the effectiveness of the redirect in accomplishing your marketing objectives.
3. Data-Driven Communication:
   • Employ persuasive data and success stories when communicating with stakeholders, investors, or your team. Demonstrating positive results reinforces the value of the domain redirect in your marketing strategy.

Types of Domain Redirect

Overall there are three types of domain redirection. Each of these should be used in specific situations. Even more importantly, there are situations when each should be avoided at all costs.

Before we dive into each, it’s worth noting that all redirects can create issues. For instance, redirection can be problematic for your SEO. However, some redirects have a relatively minor impact here, whereas others can cause much bigger problems.

301 Redirect

The first type of redirect is the 301 redirect.

This method is considered as the most efficient and search engine-friendly web page re-directory. This is because the 301 is a permanent redirect.

This means if you have a new domain name you can set the one you originally had to redirect to the new domain so you won’t lose traffic if people were to still search for your old domain.

In terms of SEO, it only ever creates very minor problems. Essentially, when you use internal linking via a 301 redirect, a small amount less page authority is passed on than when no redirect is used.

As such, it’s often better to change all internal links to the new URL, and only rely on 301 redirects for external links.

This is also used by companies for small Easter eggs within their websites or for random redirects such as banter.com to IBM.

302 Redirect

The 302 redirect is similar to the 301, except that it is temporary. This is used to redirect URLs to other web pages if an address has been changed temporarily.

This redirect is great for when you have pages under maintenance as the URL can take you to a page that is similar and is under maintenance. It might also be used for seasonal campaigns.

However, 302 redirects can make it difficult for search engines to index your site, and so they should not be widely used.

URL frame

This method isn’t as straightforward as the other redirection methods. In fact, it is not redirecting as the URL redirects to a web page displayed from the server.

It’s almost like a clone of the original web page. One problem with this method is SEO. URL frames can create duplicate content issues, as well as resulting in some pages becoming non-indexable.

As such, for the strategies we’ll look at below, using URL frames is not recommended.

More specific examples of redirect domain use cases:

Landing Pages

A company could purchase Short.com and redirect it to a long, complicated dynamnic landing page URL like www.company.com/promo/?campaign=socialmedia to create an easier link to share and remember.

Affiliate Links

Affiliates often use vanity domains like BestDeals.com to redirect to long Amazon affiliate links. This hides the messy affiliate link, builds trust, and tracks clicks before sending users to Amazon.

Ad Campaign Tracking

Advertisers might buy Ads.com and add tracking software before redirecting clicks to their main website. This allows tracking each click from a short branded domain versus normal URL.

Corporate Short Domains

Major brands purchase premium short domains to redirect to their dot com. Like Coke’s ownership of Coca.Cola which redirects to CocaCola.com. Builds brand value.

Geo Domains

A company can use geo domains for different regions that all redirect to geo-targeted landing pages – Canada.com to Canadian site, UK.com to UK content.

So in summary, redirects allow shortening, tracking, branding and SEO enhancements in many marketing and corporate use cases before sending visitors to a real site.

How to Use Domain Redirects in Marketing Campaigns

Now that you understand how redirects work, let’s think about some of the times you might want to use them.

Of course, there is a lot of room for creativity here. In fact, like any marketing technique, your goal here is to stand out from the crowd. As such, it would be impossible to write a guide detailing every possible use for domain redirects.

Instead, your goal should be to come up with new and exciting ideas for making the most of them, while of course following the rules we set out above.

Here are some common domain redirect strategies, for inspiration.

Shortening URLs

The most common marketing application for domain redirects involves shortening your URLs. This technique emerged shortly after Twitter came out, through services like bit.ly. A short URL means you don’t waste your character limit on links.

These days, social networks offer their proprietary URL shorteners.

However, an increasing number of brands are also choosing to create branded short URLs. This requires you to buy a shorter domain name, and use 301 redirects to funnel users towards your primary site.

For example, on social media posts, the New York Times uses the shorter domain NYTI.ms, while TechCrunch uses tcrn.ch.

Product-Specific Domain Names

Another common use of domain redirects is when you want to run a campaign relating to a specific product, which doesn’t have its dedicated site. This is particularly important for traditional media campaigns, like TV or radio ads.

For example, a few years ago Guiness released a lager called Hop House 13. To some extent, this has become a brand all on its own, but information relating to it is still hosted on the main Guinness site.

If they wished to use a traditional media campaign to drive traffic to relevant product pages, they could purchase a branded domain, along the lines of hophouse13.com, and then use permanent redirects to drive traffic to the relevant pages on the main Guinness site.

This technique saves the need to build viable sites for each of your products.

Emojis and Domain Redirects

An increasingly popular option for marketing campaigns is redirecting to your site via emoji domains.

As the name suggests, these are domains which include emojis. However, as emojis vary from device, it’s often hard to find the right one. As such, it’s pretty rare for a company to have an emoji in their primary domain.

Therefore a handful of websites and businesses are only using them to direct users to their original websites.

However, they add a bit of fun to some websites and almost act as an Easter egg for the company. This is an excellent way for your links to stand out as part of your social media campaigns

Understanding Domain Redirects

Let’s recap. A domain redirect is an instruction which tells web browsers to move automatically from one site to another when a link is clicked. There are several practical reasons why a web manager might want to use this technique.

Domain redirects are also very useful when you run marketing campaigns, as they help to direct more traffic to your site.

However, you must choose the correct kind of domain redirect. In most cases, a 301 redirection is the safest option, as this minimises the impact of redirection on your SEO.

The final step is simply to use a little bit of creativity to come up with engaging ways to use domain redirects in your marketing campaigns.

Comparison between redirect domains and regular website domains:

Pricing

• Redirect domains – Tend to be more expensive as they are typically branded/premium domains. Can run from $500 to $500,000+
• Regular domains – Very affordable, with .com registrations starting as low as $8/year for standard domains.

SEO Impact

• Redirect domains – Aged domains with backlinks can pass equity/rankings to site they point at via 301 redirects
• Regular domains – No ability to indirectly influence other site’s SEO or leverage existing domain authority.

Tracking Ability

• Redirect domains – Analytics software can track clicks and visitor data before redirecting to final site. Provides transparency.
• Regular domains – Typically direct visitors straight to a website with no redirect, so no tracking prior to landing.

Ease of Use

• Redirect domains – Require technical setup of DNS records and redirect rules at the registrar. More complex.
• Regular domains – Simply point at host IP address; easier for basic end user site setup with no redirects.

In summary, redirect domains enable unique use cases like branding, backlink utilization and click tracking but come at a premium price point compared to using regular site domains directly. The functionality differences justify the higher costs for certain advanced applications.

A step-by-step guide on technically setting up a redirect domain using registrar DNS settings:

1. Purchase the domain you want to use for redirecting at your preferred registrar (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap).
2. Decide whether you want a permanent (301) or temporary (302) redirect. 301s pass more SEO value.
3. Log in to your registrar’s domain management dashboard and access your domain’s DNS records.
4. Create a new DNS “A Record” and point it to the IP address of the site you want to redirect traffic to.
5. Alternatively, you can create a CNAME record and input the full domain name you wish to redirect to.
6. Save the new A or CNAME record. This will now redirect all traffic from your domain to the defined destination.
7. Test the redirect by visiting your domain in a new private browser session. You should get instantly redirected.
8. Consider enabling tracking codes or analytics before the DNS redirect so you can track traffic.
9. Optional: Set up secure site certificates to keep the redirect over HTTPS for security.

The exact steps can vary across registrars, but the general process involves updating DNS records to point at the end target domain or IP address you wish to redirect your registered domain to using A/CNAME records. This sends all your domain traffic to the defined redirect destination.

Redirect Domain FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about Redirect Domains:

Q: Do redirect domains pass SEO value?

A: Aged domains with backlinks can pass equity via 301 redirects. New/unused domains don’t.

Q: Are redirect domains worth the higher cost?

A: For branding, shortcuts, and tracking goals the benefits can justify higher prices.

Q: What are the best TLDs for redirect domains?

A: .com, .net remain most trusted. Newer TLDs can also work well like .link, .url, .site.

Q: Is buying expired domains safe for redirects?

A: Verify any legal or quality issues before purchasing any expired domain.

Redirect Domain Conclusion

In summary, redirect domains enable unique use cases above normal site domains in areas like convenience, branding, analytics, and sometimes SEO. Configuring DNS records make setup straightforward.

While redirect domains come at a steeper price point, the tailored redirection functionality they unlock makes them worthwhile investments for certain goals like creating shortcuts, tracking campaigns, or leveraging existing domain authority.

However, those looking purely for site hosting are still best served purchasing cheaper standard domains directly instead of overspending on redirects. Assess your specific use case needs before investing in specialty redirect domains.