Plesk has a feature to set up domain forwarding which helps to redirects the traffic from domain to another domain.

At Bobcares, we often get requests from our customers to configure domain forwarding in Plesk as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, this write-up describes how our Support Engineers set up domain forwarding in Plesk and fix related errors.

How we add a domain forwarder in Plesk

Domain forwarding allows automatically direct the domain’s visitors to a different location on the web. Here, let’s see how our Support Engineers set up domain forwarder.

1. Initially, we log in to the Plesk control panel.

2.  Then, we go to Websites & Domains > Add Domain.

3. In the Domain name box, type the domain name that has registered with the service provider or a domain name registration company and from which you want to redirect visitors.

4. After that, we select the option Use our DNS settings from the DNS server configuration option.

5. Again, we select the Forwarding option in Hosting type,

6. In the Destination address box, we enter the URL address to which want to redirect visitors.

7. Finally, we select standard or frame forwarding for Forwarding type.

In addition, Plesk allows setting domain redirection for the websites which are already existing on the server.

For that,

1. We go to Websites & Domains >> Hosting Settings.

2. Then, we click on the Change option from the Hosting Type field.

3. Next, under Hosting type, we select the option as Forwarding and enter the URL address in the Destination address box. Also, we set up a Forwarding type either as select standard or frame forwarding.

How we fix common errors related to Plesk domain forwarder

At Bobcares, where we have more than a decade of expertise in managing servers, we see many customers face problems while setting up domain forwarders in Plesk.

Now let’s see how our Support Engineers fixed the top errors.

Wrong DNS settings

Sometimes, the customers face problems after setting up a domain forwarding in Plesk. Like, the website forwarding does not work, and got an error 404 Server Not Found.

Often, the error happens when the given destination domain name resolves to an incorrect IP address.

So, we suggest our customers contact the domain registrar company where the domain name was purchased to set the correct IP address on the DNS zone.

Missing SSL certificate

Similarly, another error is due to missing SSL certificates on the forwarded domain. Therefore the redirection from http://abc.com to https://xyz.com won’t work anymore..

Mostly, this often happens with occurs with Let’s Encrypt, because the token file cannot be read on a redirected domain.

Therefore, our Support Engineers configure the domain as web space and place the following rule in .htaccess file which is located in the document root directory of the domain.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/.well-known/acme-challenge [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://xyz.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Then, we created the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for the domain.

This is how we fixed the problem.

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Conclusion

In short, Domain forward in Plesk allows forwarding one domain to another domain and helps website owners who want to move their websites without losing traffic.  Today, we saw how our Support Engineers fix Plesk domain forwarding related errors.