How to redirect naked domain to www in cPanel

Naked domain (also called bare or non-www domain) is a domain name without the preceeding www. Non-www domain is normally preferred because it's shorter but www domain is still used because of some legacy reason or as a requirement such as when using a Content Delivery Network or CDN.

Some websites that are available on both www and non-www URL could cause Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and user experience issues. It is advisable to host your website in any one domain and perform redirection on the other.

This could be done in a few ways, but cPanel users can configure this redirection from the cPanel dashboard.

1. Log in to your cPanel account.
2. Click on Redirects from the Domains section.
3. Select redirection type from the select list.

   This is normally to tell bot visitors such as Googlebot if the redirection is only for temporary or permanent. Naked-to-www redirection or vice versa is normally permanent.

4. Select the domain that you want to perform the redirect on from the list.
5. Leave the path empty.

   This applies the redirect to the whole domain.

6. Enter the full URL including http(s) and www in Redirects to field.

   Enter the domain without www if you're redirecting www traffic to non-www (bare/naked).

7. Select Do Not Redirect www. in www. redirection option.

   This is to exclude already-www traffic to also be redirected

   Select Only redirect with www. if you're redirecting www traffic to non-www (bare/naked).

8. Check on Wild Card Redirect checkbox.

   This pass full request path to the target instead of just redirecting to the specified path in Redirects to.

9. Click on Add button to apply the changes.
10. View generated .htaccess file in your public_html directory.

    .htaccess is a hidden file so you'll need to enabe Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) in the File Manager setting to see the file.