How to easily redirect your Netfirms domain to another domain/web site

Recently I wanted to take a new domain registered at Netfirms (netfirms.com) and point it to another domain, so that if people put the URL of the the Netfirms domain in their browser (e.g. berniemichalik.ca), their browser would get redirected elsewhere (e.g. blm849.github.io).

I thought: this should be easy to find out how to do in 2021. I was surprised it wasn’t easy or obvious. Much of the advice was dated and not useful.

Now that I found out how to do it, I will show you what I did to get it to work in 7 easy steps:

1. First, login to netfirms. It should take you to a web page like this: https://www1.netfirms.com/controlpanel/foundation/
2. Click on “Domains” on the top left of screen
3. Look for your domain (e.g. berniemichalik.ca) Click on the “Manage” button underneath it
4. On the left, look for “Pointers and Subdomains” and click on it
   The web page your browser will go to will look something like this:
   https://www1.netfirms.com/controlpanel/foundation/berniemichalik.ca/pointers-subdomains.  And the page you see should look like the image at the top of this post.
5. Click Under “Pointer Type” and set the value to “URL Standard”.
   In the box to the right, under “Directory”, put in the URL of your web site (note, put the entire URL, including http:// or https://).
6. Click the “Save” button.
7. Test it. Point your browser at the Netfirms URL and see if it gets redirected. (For me, if I type in berniemichalik.ca I get redirected to blm849.github.io). It may take some time, up to a few hours. But it will work. (If it doesn’t seem to be, try different browsers or ask someone else to try.)

That’s it. I hope this helps! Good luck!