What Is Forwarding?
Domain forwarding (also called URL forwarding or redirection) automatically sends visitors who type one domain to a different domain. For example, if you own both yourbrand.com and yourbrand.io, you might forward .io to .com so all visitors end up at the same website regardless of which domain they type.
Forwarding can be temporary (302 redirect — tells search engines this is a temporary redirect) or permanent (301 redirect — tells search engines to transfer all ranking value to the target domain). For most domain forwarding scenarios, a 301 permanent redirect is the correct choice.
Most registrars offer domain forwarding as a free feature in their control panel. You can forward the entire domain or specific URLs. Some forwarding setups preserve the path (yourbrand.io/about → yourbrand.com/about), which is better for user experience and SEO.
Why This Matters for Startups
Use forwarding for your defensive domain registrations. If you own yourbrand.com, yourbrand.io, and yourbrand.net, forward the latter two to your primary domain using 301 redirects. This ensures any traffic to alternate domains reaches your real website and consolidates SEO value. Also useful when rebranding — forward the old domain to the new one to preserve traffic and backlink value.
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