How can I redirect one domain to a specific page on another domain using DNS settings?

Technical Q&A
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1

Hello,

I have two domains, e.g. “mydomain.com” and “my2nddomain.com”. Both I purchased via Shopify.

I now need all visitors entering “my2nddomain.com” to be redirected to a specific page at the 1st domain, e.g. “mydomain.com/pages/page1”.

I know this has to be done somehow in the DNS settings, but can someone explain how exactly?

Thank you in advance!

2

Hey Tgecks,

Here’s the official help doc on editing domain DNS settings for domains purchased via Shopify: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/domains/managing-domains/edit-dns-settings

By default, if you have multiple domains added to your store, you’ll only have one “primary” domain (which is what shows in the browser when customers are on your site) and then the rest of your domains will just forward to the primary domain.

I don’t think you can link a root domain to a specific page of your site, as a root domain (ex. “my2nddomain.com”) has to point to an IP address (using an “A-Record”). If you point the domain to an IP address (ie. Shopify’s IP) then it’s just going to lead to the homepage of the site.

The closest way I know of to point to a specific page would be setting up a subdomain (using a “CNAME record”). This would be something like “something.my2nddomain.com”. CNAME records can point to specific pages on a site.

Another way to handle this would be setting up a URL redirect.

Here’s the official help doc for redirects: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/online-store/menus-and-links/url-redirect

By doing the URL redirect, you could make it so that when someone goes to “mydomain.com/something” then it brings them to a specific page on your site.

If someone else knows of a better way to handle this, then please chime in, but my understanding is that if you have a 2nd domain added to the store, then it’ll just point to the homepage (using the ‘primary’ domain in the browser’s URL bar). Your best options are setting up a subdomain (something.yourdomain.com) or else a URL redirect (yourdomain.com/something).

Cheers,

Stephen

3

Hi Stephen,

thank you for the response.

Unfortunately, that’s not exactly what I was looking for.

Do you happen to know whether other domain hosts would support what I need, e.g. if i took the 2nd domain to Cloudflare or a similar service?

4

Hey Tgecks,

If you have your domain with GoDaddy, then you can set up “domain forwarding” (https://ca.godaddy.com/help/forward-my-godaddy-domain-12123) which would allow you to point the domain to a specific page like you’re wanting to do. I imagine that other domain providers would have similar functionalities too.

Cheers,

Stephen

5

Hello,

Do you know how to do this when you bought the domain at shopify?

Thanks

6

I don’t believe Shopify offers “domain forwarding” for domains purchased via the admin, in the same way that GoDaddy does.

7

Is there a way to change the admin email, since i cant resirect? I made multiple stores when signin up, didnt realize i was not logging in, but starting from scratch. Now i have 4 stores partially formatted. Can you help me with tjis?

8

Hi @Upbear

In this situation you will want to make sure you deactivate the store accounts you no longer wish to use. If you have chosen a plan on all 4 stores then you will end being billed for them at the end of the trial period and we may not be able to provide a refund in that situation.

You can sign into the store admins and go to Settings > Plan to deactivate the store accounts you no longer wish to keep open.

Once that is done, the inactive stores will show separately from your active stores. You can change your account owner email address at any time if you wish to separate them from your active store login. You can go to Settings > User and Permissions to transfer store ownership to a new email address.

9

Hi Stephen,

Do you know if there is a way to hide the page on the main domain that I’m redirecting the second domain to? I created the page and hid it but now I can’t see what the address is to use for the redirect.

10

I’m not sure if I understand exactly what you’re trying to do.

If your Shopify store has two domains (a primary domain, and then a second one that just forwards to the main one) then the second domain would just redirect to the main domain.

ie. If you have mystore1.com and mystore2.com … then whenever someone goes to mystore2.com, they’ll see the mystore1.com domain. It wouldn’t be like a second store/website or anything like that.

The only exception would be if you’re using Shopify markets, and have assigned a domain to a specific market.

Ex. If you assign mydomain1.com to United States, and then mydomain2.com to Canada