Understanding
Web Forwarding
Operating online is a very tricky task.
It does not matter whether you are a businessman using
the Internet as a market place for your goods or simply
an Internet denizen who wants to have a website in the
cyberspace. If you want to be noticed online, you need to
know how to the use numerous tools available on the
Internet to make visitors flock to your sites. One of
these tools is web forwarding.
Web forwarding is a very common
technique online. It is known in various names-domain
redirection, URL forwarding, among others. It does as the
name suggests; it redirects visitors to another website,
one obviously with another URL. This practice is similar
to the use of short URL. But while most short URL
providers merely shorten the address of one’s page for
limited proposes, URL forwarding is used to make the site
available or accessible under the guise of several
URLs.
But why would anyone want more than one
URL? There are many reasons why web forwarding is a
practice anyone should consider-most of them to attract
visitors and to make the site more appealing. However,
the technique can also be used to deceive
visitors.
Web forwarding can be used to make a
URL shorter. For instance, the URL of a particular site,
for some reason, is more than 20 characters long.
Obviously, that’s a whole lot of words for a decent URL.
With web forwarding, the site can have a shorter URL,
while not having to change names and getting a new URL.
Needless to say, short URLs are much preferred online,
since they are easier to remember and easier to type.
This technique is also used so visitors can access a site
even if they input a different top-level domain. This
means a site with the URL of site.com can also be
accessed through site.net or site.org, for example,
through web forwarding.
Likewise, it can also be an effective
tool for webmasters who are changing the domain of their
website or are merging to websites. For instance, if the
website site1.com and site2.com are merging, getting a
new domain but integrating their content into a single
website, their webmasters can use web forwarding to
direct visitors to their new site. So here, site3.com can
be used as the short URL for
site1.com and site2.com.
Obviously, it can also be used to
deceive visitors. A website about cars, for instance, can
use books.com as a redirection. The complete difference
will confuse visitors, but it will attract visitors who
are meaning to visit a site on books rather cars. Of
course, this use of web forwarding is much frowned
upon.
There are a number of web forwarding
service providers today, which offer to redirect URLs for
a minimum price. A number of sites also offer free URL
“shortener” services that also redirect sites simply by
inputting the original URL of the site. However, it
offers less flexibility and functionality, with its prime
purpose being to merely shorten a
URL.
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