What is URL forwarding?
Have you ever typed in an address online and found yourself sent somewhere else? If you have, then you were sent there using a URL forwarding program. These programs allow users to set up one website and have it listed under multiple URLs, or domain names. Free domain forwarding actually is one of the bonuses for many DNS server companies. These companies use a free URL forwarding script to get people to type in one address to go to another address. Some of these people even use cheap email forwarding domain names to get their email in one spot from all of the different domain names they have going.
Using Forwarding for Traffic
Now, perhaps since you know a little more about domain forwarding now, you are wondering why people would use this service. Some people do it for very easy to understand reasons. Domain name forwarding allows people to make use of misspellings and other common problems. A .org site may get a .com domain with forwarding in order to get people to the right spot. These people are simply trying to increase the amount of traffic they are getting and to divert traffic that may not get there otherwise. Others know that they need to create a mirror site in order to accommodate their traffic. They may have too many visitors for a basic hosting package, for instance, and so they forward everyone after a certain visitor to a mirror site. It looks the same, but it has a different URL. If this person is good, he or she may even mask the URL so that the visitor does not know what has happened and thinks she is at the right site.
Using Forwarding For Profit
Other people who use free URL forwarding are making an attempt to make more money online. Internet marketing is an interesting animal. The concept is basic. You get people to your site. A certain percentage of them will purchase something or click ads. If you get enough people, then you will make good money. These marketers postulate, then, that if they can get more people with little work, they will make even more profit. So, they get a domain with forwarding and then create one site. They have all of the traffic sent to the one site they already have using the free domain name forwarding. Then they have put in maybe an hour of work for what will yield traffic and income for them.