On this page:
- What is masked forwarding?
- What is the problem with masked forwarding?
- What's the solution for masked forwarding?
- How can I know if masked forwarding was used or not?
What is masked forwarding?
Masked forwarding is hiding the actual address of a site in the address bar. This setting only lets your site visitors see the address that they originally typed in the address bar instead of the real address of the site that they are viewing. Example:
You use select masked forwarding to forward yourdomain.com to http://page.strikingly.com or strikingly.com/page. When you visit yourdomain.com, the address bar shows yourdomain.com and you see your site content. However, the site looks strange on mobile.
Does Strikingly Domain support mask forwarding?
The answer simply is NO. Below are the reasons we do not support it.
What is the problem with masked forwarding?
Some domain registrars allow "masked forwarding" which uses a frame to include your Strikingly site onto your domain. Frames and iframes are special HTML elements that let you include one site in another site. This sounds like it would work but in fact, this causes many problems:
- Broken mobile site. Frames often cannot properly resize on mobile screens. This means Strikingly's mobile version won't be functional when your visitors view your site from a phone. Instead of seeing a mobile version of your site, you'll see your site displayed as how it is on a computer.
- Poor search engine optimization. Frames aren't smart enough to put SEO tags, images, and descriptions on the outer wrapping site, so as a result, your domain won't be able to pull that information when it gets indexed! Bad for your site's SEO.
- No descriptions/icons are attached to the page. If you've uploaded a Facebook share image or favicon, these settings will only apply to the inner frame, so they won't be available from the outer wrapping site. As a result, your Facebook shares will not work properly.
- Outbound link security. If you have any secure external links from your site -- a link to a PayPal payment page, for instance -- those links may not function properly, since the link is only activated from within the frame and not from the browser. In this case, a service like PayPal may block your transaction because it cannot verify that you're accessing the payment page through a secure browser window!
OK. Frames are bad. What's the solution?
We have guides to walk you through the proper way of connecting your domain to Strikingly! Click here to see how to do it.
How can I know if masked forwarding was used or not?
1. Go to your domain registrar and check your domain settings.
2. Check if the site loads using the naked domain.
3. Check if the favicon load.
4. Right-click and check for a "View Frame source".
Masked forwarded site:
Non-masked forwarded site:
5. Check if the site has directories/sub-directories or paths.
Try to click an item in the navigation menu, normally a site that is on masked forwarding will only show the domain/naked domain (www.domain.com).
In case you need assistance, shoot us a line at support@strikingly.com or chat with us.