Domain name redirection or web (URL) forwarding is one of the easiest ways to start using your own web address and is a service we provide free to all customers at iWantMyName. With this option you can forward domains to any other public location on the internet. Although it shouldn't be the preferred setup, it makes perfect sense under some circumstances.
So why would you choose to redirect a domain name? First, some web services do not support custom domains but only offer to get a username tied to their web address in the form of domain.com/username, e.g. twitter.com/username or facebook.com/username. In this case forwarding is the only option to point a domain to the respective site. Secondly, a redirection comes in handy if you haven't decided what to do with a new internet address yet. By forwarding a domain, you could let all visitors go to a Facebook page or LinkedIn profile instead of presenting them with a blank site or an error message in your browser.
Here's our top 10 list of services to forward to:
- Facebook profile / page -> http://facebook.com/username
- Twitter profile -> http://twitter.com/username
- LinkedIn profile -> http://linkedin.com/in/username
- Google Profiles -> http://profiles.google.com/username
- Flickr fotos -> http://flickr.com/photos/username
- YouTube videos -> http://youtube.com/user/username
- Vimeo videos -> http://vimeo.com/username
- Last.fm music -> http://last.fm/user/username
- MySpace profile -> http://myspace.com/username
- Identi.ca profile -> http://identi.ca/username
Besides linking your domain to only one of the mentioned services, you could also create your own namespace like:
yourdomainname.com/status - forward to Twitter or Identi.ca
yourdomainname.com/profile - forward to LinkedIn or Google Profiles
yourdomainname.com/video - forward to Youtube or Vimeo
yourdomainname.com/music - forward to Last.fm or MySpace
You get the drift... only by owning a domain name and having control over the full web address, are you actually able to change the destination at any point in time. Don't like Twitter anymore? Simply change yourdomainname.com/status to another service.
You can set up free domain forwarding through your domain management interface at iWantMyName.
