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URL forwarding

Page Rules allow you to forward or redirect traffic to a different URL, though they are just one of the options provided by Cloudflare.

Redirect with Page Rules

To configure URL forwarding or redirects using Page Rules:

  1. Log in to your Cloudflare account ↗, and select your account and domain.
  2. Go to Rules > Page Rules.
  3. Under Page Rules, select Create Page Rule.
  4. Under If the URL matches, enter the URL or URL pattern that should match the rule. 
  5. In Pick a Setting, choose Forwarding URL from the drop-down menu.
  6. For Select status code, choose 301 - Permanent Redirect or 302 - Temporary Redirect.
  7. Enter the destination URL.
  8. Select Save and Deploy Page Rule.

Forwarding examples

Imagine you want site visitors to reach your website for a variety of URL patterns. For instance, the page rule URL patterns *www.example.com/products and *example.com/products match:

http://example.com/products


http://www.example.com/products


https://www.example.com/products


https://blog.example.com/products


https://www.blog.example.com/products

but do not match:

http://www.example.com/blog/products (extra directory)
or
http://www.example.comproducts (no trailing slash)

Once you have created the pattern that matches what you want, select the Forwarding toggle. This will display a field where you can enter the address you want requests forwarded to.

https://example.com/products

If you enter the address above in the forwarding box and select Add Rule, within a few seconds any requests that match the pattern you entered will automatically be forwarded with an HTTP 302 redirect status code to the new URL.

Advanced forwarding options

If you use a basic redirect, such as forwarding the apex domain (example.com) to www.example.com, then you lose anything else in the URL.

For example, you could set up the pattern:

example.com

And have it forward to:

http://www.example.com

However, if someone entered example.com/some-particular-page.html, they would be redirected to:

www.example.com

Instead of:

www.example.com/some-particular-page.html

The solution is to use variables. Each wildcard corresponds to a variable when can be referenced in the forwarding address. The variables are represented by a $ (dollar sign) followed by a number. To refer to the first wildcard you would use $1, to refer to the second wildcard you would use $2, and so on.

To fix the forwarding from the apex to www in the above example, you could use the same pattern:

example.com/*

You would then set up the following URL for traffic to forward to:

http://www.example.com/$1

In this case, if someone went to:

example.com/some-particular-page.html

They would be redirected to:

http://www.example.com/some-particular-page.html
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