How to Redirect a URL to a Different Domain in Hostinger (2026 Guide)

1. What Is a Domain Redirect?

A domain redirect (also known as domain forwarding or URL redirection) is a technical mechanism that routes incoming web traffic from one domain name or specific URL path to a completely different destination address.

For instance, when a user types olddomain.com into their browser, the web server processes the request and automatically sends them to newdomain.com. This process happens behind the scenes in milliseconds, ensuring that your visitors reach the correct content without manual intervention.

Redirects are essential for maintaining user experience, preserving page ranks in search engines when renaming websites, mapping multiple domain variations, and keeping your organic rankings safe after platform migrations.

2. 301 vs 302 Redirects

Understanding the difference between a 301 redirect and a 302 redirect is critical for search engine optimization. Crawlers handle these instructions in very distinct ways:

3. How to Redirect a Domain Using Hostinger hPanel

Hostinger has designed a dedicated graphical interface inside hPanel to handle URL redirects, making the process accessible without needing to touch server configuration files directly.

4. How to Redirect a Single URL

If you only need to redirect a specific path (such as a promotional landing page or an old blog post URL) rather than your whole domain, you can configure a single URL redirect.

This can be done using the hPanel interface by specifying the path in the Redirect from field. For example, if you want to forward yourdomain.com/blackfriday to yourdomain.com/deals, you would input blackfriday as the source path and the full URL of the deals page as the destination.

Alternatively, for Apache-based web hosting plans on Hostinger, you can add a single line to your .htaccess file inside the public_html folder using hPanel File Manager:

5. How to Redirect an Entire Website

When migrating your entire business to a new domain name, you must route all old URLs to their matching counterparts on the new domain (wildcard redirection) to retain SEO authority.

To accomplish this, open the .htaccess file of your old website in the Hostinger File Manager and paste the following Rewrite Engine directives at the top:

*This script captures any path entered on the old domain (e.g., olddomain.com/about) and appends it to the new domain (newdomain.com/about), passing SEO rankings cleanly.

6. Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS

Securing your website with HTTPS is a ranking signal for Google. Hostinger provides a simple toggle inside hPanel under Advanced -> SSLnamed "Force HTTPS".

If you prefer to configure this at the server configuration level manually (or if you are running an custom app architecture), add this rewrite block to your .htaccess file:

7. Redirecting www to non-www

Having both the www and non-www versions of your site accessible can lead to duplicate content issues. It is best practice to standardize on one.

To force all traffic to resolve on the non-www version of your site, add this block:

To do the opposite (force non-www to www):

8. Common Redirect Errors

When setting up forwarding rules, minor configuration mistakes can break access to your website. Here are the most common issues:

• Incorrect Protocol Syntax: Forgetting to include https:// in the destination field, causing the server to treat the redirect as a relative folder path.
• DNS Cache Latency: Believing a redirect is not working because your local ISP DNS resolver is caching the old route. Always test in private incognito tabs.
• Active CMS Conflicts: Setting up redirect rules in hPanel while having a WordPress plugin (like Redirection) trying to handle the same paths, creating structural crashes.

9. Troubleshooting Redirect Loops

A redirect loop occurs when your browser tries to load a page, and the server returns a redirect response pointing to a location that points back to the origin, throwing the error "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS".

10. Best SEO Practices for Redirects

To preserve your search engine optimization authority during redirects, implement these guidelines:

• Always Use 301 for Permanent Changes: Never use 302 redirects when migrating pages or changing domain names permanently.
• Avoid Chain Redirects: Avoid redirecting URL A to B, and then B to C. Make A redirect directly to C. Chain redirects slow down page loading speeds and exhaust crawl budgets.
• Update Internal Links: Do not rely on redirects to handle internal navigation. Always update your website menus, links, and footer paths to link directly to the new target URL.