Forwarding your root domain
IMPORTANT: this step is ONLY required if you chose to integrate your Main (also known as Root) Domain. It is NOT needed if you’re only integrating a Subdomain.
If you’re integrating your Main Domain, Kartra will be effectively using “www” as a pseudo-subdomain. For that reason, we need to make sure that if someone types in their browser http://YourDomain.com, they’re indeed redirected to https://www.YourDomain.com.
This is called URL redirecting or URL forwarding, and your domain registrar is likely to also have this feature. Once again, if you ask their support team, they will point you where to find it in their interface. It should look, more less, as follows:
Note the following:
- Replace “YourDomain.com” with your actual domain.
- You don’t need to enter any subdomain, because we want to redirect the root (Main Domain) itself.
- You must enter the forwarding URL as https and www. It is irrelevant whether your domain doesn’t actually have a SSL secure certificate – Kartra will automatically provide it, which is why you must add the “s” in “https” (“s” stands for “secure”).
- The configuration must be set to Permanent Redirect (301) and Forward Path.
- Finally, not all domain providers support this type of redirect. You will want to contact your domain provider’s support for details on formatting and use of their system. The important goal of this step (that you may need to point out to external support teams) is to ensure users who go specifically to “http://yourDomain.com” are sent to the specific domain “https://www.yourDomain.com” and not some generalized or altered version of either. And only the domain provider’s support will be able to confirm if this is possible. If not possible then we would recommend to utilize our sub-domain options to avoid this entire step; you can then use standard page forwarding options for your primary URL to send to your sub-domain via the domain provider.
Just a small example of the type of options you will see in such a redirect:
Most domain providers will offer the options listed above. It is important that you choose “do not redirect www”, as the whole purpose of this entire forward / redirect is to send people who go to your domain without a “www” to then get sent to the actual page which does contain a “www”. Selecting any other option will cause and infinite loop and ensure your domain does not work.
Note: If you use GoDaddy and have added the DNS record CNAME with “www”, then you should not be doing this step. This is also not the recommended setup for GoDaddy users and we highly recommend you go the GoDaddy documentation below and use our sub-domain workaround. Please scroll down to get more details on how to setup via that unique system.