Should I use IIS or my DNS provider to redirect my naked domain to its www version?

Question

How do I get the naked domain for my site that is typed into a browser (example.com) to automatically redirect to www.mywebsite.com. Would this be done on the internal IIS web server or through the registration service DNS settings?

I use Register.com and I tried asking their technical support, but they did not answer my question with a usable solution.

Answer 1

Would this be done on the internal IIS web server

It's possible. There are several ways. I will show the way where you use the web.config file. In your web.config file put the following code:

<rewrite>
    <rules>
    <rule name="Redirect domain.com to www" patternSyntax="Wildcard" stopProcessing="true">
            <match url="*" />
            <conditions>
                <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="domain.com" />
            </conditions>
            <action type="Redirect" url="http://www.domain.com/{R:0}" />
        </rule>
    </rules>
</rewrite>

Or if you want to use regular expressions:

<rewrite>
    <rules>
        <rule name="Redirect domain.com to www" patternSyntax="ECMAScript" stopProcessing="true">
            <match url=".*" />
            <conditions>
                <add input="{HTTP_HOST}" pattern="^domain.com$" />
            </conditions>
            <action type="Redirect" url="http://www.domain.com/{R:0}" />
        </rule>
    </rules>
</rewrite>

Answer 2

Just try editing .htaccess file.

Just paste the following code in .htaccess file

#Force www:
 RewriteEngine on
 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC]
 RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301,NC]

replace "example" with "your domain name".