Forward your Google domain to a URL or IP address

When you purchase or transfer a domain to Google Domains, you can point your domain name to another address to drive people to a single location.

For example, “www.example.net” could forward to “www.example.com.”

Some examples of forwarding destinations include:

• Root domains
• Subdomains, a domain that’s part of a larger domain
• Folders
• Web pages
• IP addresses

To forward your domain:

1. On your computer, open Google Domains.
2. Click the domain name Menu Website.
3. Under “Forward to an existing web page,” click Forward domain.
4. Under “Forward from,” click Edit.
5. Enter the domain or subdomain that you want to forward and the URL or IP address you want to forward it to.
   • If you want to change the redirect type or path forwarding or turn on “Secure Sockets Layer,” click Advanced options and make your selections.
6. Click Forward.
7. Check that your domain is forwarded to the intended location.

When you set up web forwarding, Google Domains creates a web forwarding synthetic record. If you delete this record, web forwarding stops. Learn more about resource record types.

Verify that your domain forwards correctly

1. On your computer, open Google Domains.
2. Click the domain that you forwarded.
3. Scroll to “My website.”
4. To open it in a new tab, click the website image or preview.

Domain forwarding may take up to 48 hours to update. If your website doesn’t show after 48 hours, check the URL and try again.

Find the Domain forward DNS records

When you set up web forwarding, Google Domains creates a synthetic record that contains the DNS records. 

To find the Domain forward DNS records:

1. On your computer, open Google Domains.
2. On the domain list, click the domain you forwarded.
3. If applicable, click Menu .
4. Click DNS .
5. Scroll to “Synthetic records.”
6. To find the details of a synthetic record, next to the record, click Expand.

Other Google Domain forwarding options

Depending on your needs, you can choose from several Google Domains forwarding options: 

Redirect type

The redirect type determines how routers and browsers store your web forwarding info. You can choose one:

• A temporary (HTTP 302) redirect allows quick changes to your forwarding address. When you use a temporary redirect, you can force a lookup to the routing table or DNS server every time.
• A permanent (HTTP 301) redirect lets browsers cache the forwarding address. When you cache the forwarding address, you may help resolve the address faster on subsequent visits from the same browser. However, changes made to the forwarding address may take longer to occur.

If you’re unsure of which redirect to choose, use a temporary (HTTP 302) redirect.

Path forwarding

Path forwarding lets you forward the path after the domain name to the same path at the new domain. Everything after the initial “.com/” in your URL is copied to the forwarded domain. When the domain you’re forwarding to has the same structure as the current domain, use path forwarding.

For example, if you’re forwarding “documentationexample.com” to “example.com”, your domain can be forwarded in 2 ways:

• With path forwarding on: “documentationexample.com/about.html” redirects to “example.com/about.html”.
• With path forwarding off: “documentationexample.com/about.html” redirects to “example.com”.

Tips:

• To make sure that you forward to a website URL that ends with a “/” sign: Do not turn on path forwarding.
• To turn off path forwarding: Under “Path Forwarding,” click Do not forward.

Forwarding over SSL

You have 2 options with forwarding over SSL:

• When SSL is on: Forwarding works for both HTTP and HTTPS requests.
• When SSL is off: Forwarding only works for plain HTTP requests.

Tip: You can’t forward the wildcard address “*” over SSL.

When SSL is on, Google Domains gives and sets up an SSL certificate for the redirect automatically. To ensure SSL coverage, the destination URL should begin in “https://”.

Learn how to get an SSL certificate for your domain.