Well, I guess one day or another you will need to refer your users about your Google+, Facebook, etc. profiles. You may have also seen some big sites like SML using similar method. If you want someone to use your coupon code without revealing it, then this is the best trick you can use. There are thousands of online domains which even ‘pay’ you when you mask your URL’s, but what about masking on your own domain? It can be really fun! Let’s read this post and I will show you how to do this task and why should you do this!
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What Is Domain Masking?
Domain masking is the process of hiding a domain inside another domain to give out either professional look, or fool people (sometimes done by hackers) Domain masking sets either 301 Permanent Redirection to domain or 302 Temporary redirection to domain.
What Is 301 Permanent Redirection And 302 Temporary Redirection?
301 Permanent Redirection means permanently redirecting to a domain without leaving out anything whereas 302 Temporary Redirection leaves down some things for crawlers and search engines to tell them whether it’s a 301 redirection or 302. Let’s take a simple example. You have bookmarked a domain example.com, now the admin changed the domain and set permanent redirection (301) to his domain. Now, the favicon set for example.com will be changed to the favicon set for abc.com. If the author had set 302 redirection, then the favicon for existing users won’t have been changed.
Things Required Setting Up Custom Redirection (Masking):
- Domain
- cPanel
- Domain to be masked
- That’s it!
How To Mask Domain Using cPanel?
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- First of all, log into your cPanel which usually is on http://domain.com/cpanel or http://domain.com:2082
- After login, you will see a bunch of screen with a lot of icons ready to be clicked.
- Leave them all and navigate down to Domain Section.
- Click on Redirects
- Now, you will get a single big Redirects screen.
1. Type: This will set up type of redirection. 301 is Recommended.
2. Domain: Select your domain on which redirection is to be set. You can create your sub domains also like go.onenaijablog.com
3. Path: These are the words on which visitor visits gets redirected. Like: recommend/googleplus
4. Redirects to: This field has to be filled with the domain on which the above domain must be redirected. Like domain as onenaijablog in 2nd field and google in 3rd field and google.com in third field.
5. Redirection: Simply keep it as default. No need to mess with it.
6. Button: This will create your redirection.
From Editor’s Desk:
Well, you can create as many redirects as you want. This would help you to give your domain a more professional look. Rather than using cheap link shortner you can use this one too which will be secure and 100% trust able as it is hosted on your own custom domain. You can create sub domains to make a redirection domain too.
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We have talked so much about so much now let’s move the whole story and discussions to you guys. Are you confused with the whole illustrations and would love to ask questions? then please do by using the comment box below and we will surely get back to you.
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Hey Mehul,
Good share!
I have been working in cPanel since 2005 and this is one of the things I use often.
I’m sure this tut will really help many starters
Thanks for sharing bro
Thanks Mr. Muki. Keep Visiting!
Hello Mehul, good to have you here on Babanature’s blog…
Now i just have one question; Can i use this method for URL shortner? and will it make any effect at the long run? I’d like to know all this because i am never a tech guy 
This post is really technical and might give a non-tech person the chill
Hi Bello! The post is made as simple as it can be!
So, the answer is YES. You can use this service as a link shortner also. It won’t affect your site in any way because it is completely hosted on your servers with Permanent 301 Redirection. Hope that helps. 
That’s a nice trick, Mehul. So, you mean we can use this to cloak our affiliate links instead of the plugins we use. Are there any disadvantages of not using the plugin? The advantage I understand is to have total control over the link and not to depend on any external source. Thanks Babanature for this post.
Harleen, you can use that way but the drawback is you won’t have those important stats to analyze and make further strategies. That’s why we are bound to get some nice plugin such as ‘PrettyLink’ to mask affiliate links.
Hey Harleena! Plugins, one way or another, affect your site in some way. So, it is better to use cleaner ways instead of plugins. It will also work even if you are not on wordpress.
Just the same question came up to me like it did to Harleena ma’m. I thought may be some backfiring. Great tricks anyways Mehul and Thanks Mehul for those plugins mentioned
HI Mehul,
This is the best description of 301 and 302 redirect and many of people I know haven’t been able to understand the usage of this one but this is very much important when you’ve multiple domains pointing towards single hosting or moved the stuff from one domain to another.
Thanks for this great share.
Sapna
Hi Sapna,
It is not only to point multiple domain names to one blog but also you can create different subdomains and redirect them to appropriate categories. For example if you have a category ‘Search Engine Optimization’ on your blog example.com, it would be great to display seo.example.com, doesn’t it?
Thanks Sapna!
This is indeed a technical article but my main concern is the SEO effect. How will it affect SEO?
Nwosu,
If you create temporary redirect, it will not pass SEO benefits (link juice) to the redirected page. If you want to pass the SEO benefits, you’ll need to set permanent redirection. Hope it helps you to understand.
Thanks for kind responses Suresh. Agree with you.
This is useful tutorial. Still, newbies are scared to change settings from cPanel. However, your illustrations should make them able to create redirected domain names.
If you are interested to mask your affiliate links and tracking, I recommend using plugins like PrettyLink. You can create short and meaningful URLs to redirect them to affiliate links. The better purpose of this plugin is to get tracking report, the analytics to find which links are performing better.
Yes. One of the benefit of using plugins is that you get flexibility. But this is for those people who don’t use WordPress!
this is surely a good article great for me thanks for sharing but there are some plugins that do that stuff right ?
Yea. Plugins can also do these tasks. But it is better to know a manual way too!
Wow Mehul, learning more and more these days about the tech side of things. I fumbled through masking 4 years ago when I began blogging lol
Thanks for sharing your insight with us.
Ryan
You’re Welcome Ryan. Keep in touch.
great article as usual thanks fort the share keep rocking
Welcome bro!
Never ever thought that it is actually possible. Thanks for letting me know about this issue! I learn something more challenging on completely different
blogs everyday.
Thanks Evan. Everything is possible. At least in technical world! Because impossible is i-m-possible… Haha!!
Have a nice day!
Hi Mehul,
What an interesting post you’ve shared with us. Now I’m going to admit right now that this is over my head. I know how to mask my domain in my domain account and I know how to redirect my affiliate links. I’ve always heard about 301 redirects but I never understood why there were necessary. I get what you’re saying about a coupon code so I guess is you don’t want people to see the actual link then this is why you would do this? Is that right?
I’m not very technical but I have learned a lot. Mostly stuff that I need to know and this is not one of them. Okay, not yet.
Thanks for this tutorial though so at least I know how to do this if I want. I’m sure Babanature appreciated this share today.
You guys have a great week.
~Adrienne
I’m with you Adrienne.
This is quite above my head too, but reading it through, especially the comment section, I do have a better understanding of it now.
Interesting and a to-do later on down the road.
Many thanks Mehul.
Donna
Hello Adrienne,
. But i know now that i have some idea about it now. Thanks for the comment and do have a great week ahead.
sure i really do love the post. If i must confess, i don’t really know about domain masking till i come across this post
Nice tips for all newbie as i preferred plugin only for my blogs not yet tried manual one would like to change them as plugin can cause any issues at anytime
Great tips for masking your domain. I’ve done this with a couple of websites and it works like a charm! Thanks for sharing Onenaija!
Hi Mehul,
I have no idea about “redirects” or “301” nor “masking.” And I have W3 Total Cache and still it confuses the heck out of me. I also used WP Super Cache besides the W3 TC. Just because WP Super Cache is EASIER to use. Whenever I update my blog or post, all I do is delete the cache on WP Super Cache but I cannot do that on W3 TC.
Besides the masking technical stuff…I’m afraid this is my weakness. The part that I hate about graphic design and/or coding is the technical issue. After all I’m an Artist and not a programmer. Anyway, so far so good.
Angela
Thanks for sharing your views with us. But I am a little confused. Was that a question, general comment, compliment, or problem?!
Thanks dude! Now I know what is domain masking.. Ideally didn’t knew it! Thanks to you buddy
I am glad this post helped you out.
Awesome informative article Mohan bro!! But I wanted to know I have two domains, ONE HAS hosting other doesn’t . Can I redirect the one without hosting to the other one ?
Okay. For that you will need access to your HTML code at least. If you HAVE access to HTML code, then you can set META refresh to redirect domain. If NO, then you can paste a javascript anywhere in your site’s section and it will work. Contact me on email on Google it for more info.
Hi Mehul ,
Great Tutorial . You are everywhere man . Wherever I go , I find you . There is a Mehul Mohan guest post each and every where . Keep up the good work mate .
Regards,
Navneet
Great To See You Here Navneet! Have A Nice Day!
Hi Mehul
Great tips on masking a domain and about the 301 and 302 redirects.
I learned something new today as I am new to all these technical stuff and I am not techy myself.
Maybe I will try it in the future, but it is not in my agenda for now.
Many thanks Mehul for sharing your technical experience. Also thanks Babanature for this great share in your blog.
Be Blessed,
Neamat
Thanks a ton for such sweet words Neamat!
Mehul,I came to know of this issue today only.you have written in very simple language….
Glad you find the article simple enough to comment. do have a lovely week ahead Karnal.
Hey Mehul,
I like your website so I subscribed for news. I also liked your facebook fan page.
Best regards from I. C. Daniel – Romania
You’re Welcome Daniel!
What’s the SEO effect of doing these types of redirections ? Because by using some plugins we also can do the same thing. But how do we control the SEO performance of site making redirections using this method ? Yes, it doesn’t need to worry for internal pages, but if we want to links to an affiliate page, we must add rel=’nofollow’ tag. Is there a way to do it ?