etc/host file to redirect websites

Yes. DISCLAIMER>>>> No responsibility taken if you cause problems to your system by messing around with these commands.

Open Terminal.

cd /private/etc
cat hosts

This will display the current contents of the hosts file.

To edit the file:

sudo pico hosts

You will be prompted for an administrator password. You will not see anything as the password is entered.

The pico editor is fairly straightforward. You should add the entry you need after "broadcasthost" and before the ::1 localhost entry.

209.85.173.103 site1.com

Then press CTRL O to save the change and CTRL X to exit.

Done.

Tom, they don't have a DNS issue. They actually want to redirect.

After everything else in the hosts file, add a line that looks like
208.69.32.230 www.site1.com

The first IP address is where you want to go. The second domain name is where you want to redirect from.

if you sign up with Open DNS you can set up aliases that work that way - http://www.opendns.com/features/shortcuts/

LN

site1.com should resolve to 207.210.92.226

So if your browser is pointing site1.com to google there is either an issue with your browsers dns cached or your mac dns cache or your router dns cache or your isp dns cache. Well in a nutshell a dns issue.

You should not need to edit the host file. Try fixing your dns issue.

restart your router.

clear your dns cache on your mac using the terminal command

dscacheutil -flushcache

clear you caches in the preferences of safari or firefox.

Try using http://site1.com again.

This is not something that you can do through the hosts file. The hosts file operates maps IP addresses to domain names. So unless the cnn.com/HEALTH is on a separate IP address to cnn.com you can't use hosts to that part of the job.