GoDaddy URL forwarding while keeping relative path

Question

I'm hosting my website on Google App Engine and my domain name on GoDaddy.

Google App Engine does not allow you to have naked URLs. So it doesn't allow you to have example.com but does allow you to have www.example.com.

I can easily enable forwarding in GoDaddy to forward exmample.com to www.example.com however it does not keep the relative URL path.

For example I would like for example.com/images/3.jpg to be forwarded to www.example.com/images/3.jpg and not just www.example.com.

Answer 1

If anyone's coming here from a search result after struggling with this issue, GoDaddy have officially said (as of 2018-07-16) that their domain forwarding no longer supports URL paths.

Our forwarding service does not work with URL paths, unfortunately. If you want to redirect and match a path, you would need to point the domain to a hosting plan and then do a 301 or 302 redirect there. Perhaps the IP you're forwarding to can be instead set up to host your domain, so you do not need to do the forward.

https://uk.godaddy.com/community/Managing-Domains/Domain-forwarding-path-being-lost/td-p/111686

Answer 2

GoDaddy's forwarding feature does preserve paths. I have a .org domain registered with GoDaddy and forwarded to the corresponding .com domain. Paths are preserved.

I use the following forwarding options:

• Redirect type: 301 permanent
• Forward settings: forward only

Answer 3

Why don't you just use .htaccess?

Create a text file and copy and paste the following inside:

# Force 'non-www' to 'www'
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^YOURDOMAIN.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [L,R=301] 

1. rename it to ".htaccess"
2. upload it to your public_html folder where index.php is located