General Redirection
Redirecting a Dyn Standard DNS host to a different location is a fairly simple process. When creating or editing a host, select the WebHop Redirect option under Service Type. Under the WebHop section, enter the full URL (including http://) of the desired destination. Optionally, you can cloak the redirect by selecting Yes, cloak this page and entering a cloaked page title. Finally, click Create New Host or Save Changes to complete the modifications. Barring caching issues, you should be able to visit the host and see the redirect within minutes.
How Does Cloaking Work?
When cloaking is enabled on a WebHop, frames are used to mask the address and title bars. The address bar will remain set to the original URL and the title bar will be replaced with the desired text. For example, if you create a WebHop for http://www.domain.com which redirects to http://some.otherdomain.com:8898/really/~long/url.html, the address bar will only show http://www.domain.com.
Redirecting to an Alternate Port (e.g. 80 to 8000)
EXAMPLE
http://yourhost.yourdomain.com/ redirects to http://yourserver.yourdomain.com:8080/
Some Internet Service Providers block common ports, such as 80 (HTTP) and 25 (SMTP). Using our WebHop redirection service, you can circumvent this port blocking by redirecting to your server on an alternate port. (For using alternate ports with SMTP, please see our Dyn Standard SMTP and Dyn Email Gateway services.)
To create an alternate port redirect, you will need two hosts:
Visitor Host This is the host visitors will access when trying to reach your server.
Destination Host This host will be assigned to your network’s IP address.
For example, you want visitors to use www.domain.com to reach your website, but your webserver uses port 8000. The visitor host in this case is www.domain.com. You need to create a destination host, such as site.domain.com, and assign this to your webserver’s IP address.
Once site.domain.com has been created, you will need to change www.domain.com into a WebHop host record. (If www.domain.com already exists as a CNAME record, you will need to delete it and recreate it as a WebHop host.) The WebHop URL will be:
http://site.domain.com:8000/
Visitors to www.domain.com will now be redirected to site.domain.com, and the :8000 will tell their web browser to use the alternate port.
Remember, your visitor host www.domain.com must remain assigned to the WebHop server’s IP address. You should only update the destination host site.domain.com, so make sure your update client is only configured to update site.domain.com.
Redirecting a Subdomain to a Subdirectory (e.g. sub.dom.com to dom.com/sub)
EXAMPLE
http://myhost.dyndns.org/ redirects to http://myserver.dyndns.org/~myhomepage/
In many instances, you may wish to redirect from a subdomain (e.g., subdom.domain.com) to a subdirectory of your main site (e.g., www.domain.com/subdir). While creating a WebHop redirect is a simple enough solution, a better solution is to use either virtual hosting or a 301 server-side redirection instead. Please see webconfs.com’s 301 Redirect page for a collection of server-side redirection code for a variety of services (PHP, .htaccess, etc.).
Redirecting Alternate TLDs
EXAMPLE
http://www.mydomain.org/ redirects to http://mydomain.com/
A registrant will often register their desired domain name in multiple Top-Level Domains to help protect and solidify their web identity. For example, a registrant may create mydomain.com, mydomain.net and mydomain.org to prevent others from using ‘mydomain’ to prevent confusion, protect trademarks and prevent cyber-squatting. However, they will often only wish to use one of the TLDs as their “primary” and have the other TLDs redirect to this (e.g. mydomain.net and mydomain.org redirecting to mydomain.com).
First, these alternate TLDs will each require DNS. A WebHop alone cannot provide DNS service, so a registered domain without DNS cannot be redirected. If you were to purchase just registration for a domain, then attempt to use a WebHop to redirect it, it would not work.
Assuming each TLD has DNS, it is not recommended to use a WebHop. WebHops use 302 Temporary redirections, which may harm site rankings when used to redirect multiple domains to the same content. Instead, it is highly recommended to use 301 Permanent redirects to point these alternate TLDs to your primary site.
Redirecting with HTTPS
EXAMPLE
http://secure.mydomain.com/ redirects to https://secure.mydomain.com/
A WebHop can be used to redirect HTTP to HTTPS (http://domain.com to https://sub.domain.com), including alternate ports. However, you cannot cloak this redirection, as a browser will show the topmost item (the cloaking frame) as insecure, and visitors will not have any visual cues about the security of the site’s contents (e.g., lock icons, https in the address bar, etc.).
Using Secondary DNS or Third-Party DNS
To use a WebHop with Secondary DNS or a third-party DNS provider, you will first need to create the desired hostname in your domain’s zone file, and assign it to 216.146.39.125. You can then create the WebHop entry in our system using the manual Add New WebHop tool. Visitors to the host will reach our WebHop server, which will properly perform the desired redirection.