Support/FAQ


What does it do?
Takes any request to a domain that doesn't start with www and redirects it to the same domain, but with www. added on to the beginning.
Why do I need this?
  1. You want to force everyone to use www but do not want to code it yourself. Good for SEO!
  2. Your DNS vendor will not let you put a CNAME on a bare domain name and you are using a service (like Google AppEngine) that requires a CNAME.
How do I set it up?
Just point any non-www DNS entry to 50.17.181.25
Is it free? Why?
Yes. This is the free part of a freemium service I will launch in the near future. I promise that this service level will always be free.
Does it work for secure (https:) sites?
Not directly, at least for the moment. For now, the easiest way to get https support is put use Cloudflare or another CDN: it works just fine behind a proxy.

I do plan on adding this feature, but may make it a premium feature.
Are there any files that are not redirected?
Just a few housekeeping files: See below for details
What is so special about the ads.txt file?
The ads.txt file is used by Google (and others) to make sure only authorized resellers are putting ads on your site. Google mandates that it be directly on the root domain without any redirects.
How do I set the contents of ads.txt since it does not get redirected?
Create a DNS TXT record that looks like:

ads.txt=google.com, pub-1234567890123456, DIRECT, abcdef1234567890

If you have multiple lines, you can URLEncode the part after the =.
How stable is the 50.17.181.25 IP address?
It should be completely stable: it is an Amazon AWS Elastic IP. It is not tied to specific hardware, so I can move around as needed.
Is the redirect temporary (302) or permanent (301)?
Temporary (302) redirects. I considered using permanent redirects, but the potential for problems outweighed the benefits.
What about robots/search engines/SEO?
I specifically do not redirect requests for robots.txt. Instead, I tell robots not to index anything on a bare domain. Robots should go directly to the www domain instead.
How reliable is it?
It should be reliable, but, as with most free services, there are no guarantees.
What if I need a 100% uptime guarantee?
Then you should host your own! This is a free service, and there are no guarantees or service level agreements.

That said, I use NodePing for uptime monitoring, and you can see my uptime report, which looks pretty good (IMHO).
What if I screw up and point my www DNS entry here by mistake?
The redirect for www.redirect2www.com will always be a temporary redirect, so as soon as you fix the DNS entry, it should start working again.
How does it work?
A custom go server.