Encited

301 redirects

What 301 redirects do here#

Page-level 301 redirects forward a specific path (or pattern of paths) to a new destination. The redirect runs at the edge before Encited renders anything, and applies equally to bots, crawlers, and human visitors.

A 301 tells search engines the move is permanent, so:

  • ~90–99% of the old URL's ranking power passes to the new URL
  • The old URL eventually drops out of the index
  • Existing backlinks count for the new page

302s don't pass ranking signal — only use one if the move is genuinely temporary.

This guide is for path redirects. For redirecting www.example.com ↔ example.com, use the Primary domain setting instead — those two redirect types should not overlap.

Where to configure it#

  1. Go to Site Settings
  2. Open the Redirects accordion under CACHE & ROUTING
  3. Click Add Redirect, fill in FROM and TO, save

The first matching rule wins, so order matters when patterns overlap.

Path patterns: * and **#

Sources are matched by glob-style path patterns, not regex. Two wildcards are supported, and each one must be a whole path segment — /blog/* is valid, /blog-* is not.

Token Matches Example
* One single path segment /blog/* matches /blog/hello but not /blog/2024/hello
** The rest of the path (zero or more segments) /old/** matches /old, /old/a, /old/a/b/c

Rules:

  • Patterns must start with /
  • ** may only appear as the last segment
  • Sources cannot contain ? or # unless you're using an exact-match query redirect

Capture placeholders: $1, $2, …#

Every wildcard in the source becomes a numbered capture. Reference it in the destination with $N — $1 is the first wildcard, $2 the second, and so on. ** captures the entire remaining path as a single string (without a leading slash).

Examples#

Rename a path prefix and keep the rest:

FROM TO
/old-blog/** /blog/$1

/old-blog/2024/seo-tips → /blog/2024/seo-tips

Reorder URL segments:

FROM TO
/author/*/post/* /post/$2/by/$1

/author/jane/post/intro → /post/intro/by/jane

Collapse a category into a flat URL:

FROM TO
/category/*/item/* /shop/$2

/category/shoes/item/red-runner → /shop/red-runner

Redirect to an external site:

FROM TO
/docs/legacy/** https://docs.legacy.example.com/$1

External destinations are always 301 (we won't issue a 307 to a different origin).

$N only works when the source has at least N wildcards. Referencing $2 against a source with one * is a save-time error. Patterns without wildcards have no captures to substitute.

Exact-match redirects for legacy query strings#

Path patterns can't include ?, so to redirect a legacy URL like /old.asp?id=42 you need to put the full literal string (path + query) in the source. The redirect engine detects the ? and switches to exact-string matching for that rule — no wildcards, no captures.

FROM TO
/old.asp?id=42 /products/widget-42

This is the only way to discriminate between two URLs that share a path but differ on query — useful for migrating off .asp, .php, or any CMS that encoded IDs into the query string.

Captures don't work in exact-match rules. The destination cannot contain $1, $2, etc. when the source has a ? — there's nothing to capture. This is enforced at save time.

Avoid redirect chains#

A chain happens when a redirect points to another redirect:

/old → /middle → /final

Each hop loses a small amount of ranking signal and adds latency. Always point directly to the final destination:

/old → /final
/middle → /final

If you've accumulated chains over the years, audit them with the SEO Spider — it flags multi-hop redirects.

Verify a redirect#

curl -sI https://example.com/old-path
# Expect:
# HTTP/2 301
# location: /new-path

For redirects with captures, hit a path that exercises the wildcard:

curl -sI https://example.com/old-blog/2024/hello
# location: /blog/2024/hello

Common mistakes#

  • Overlapping rules — /blog/* and /blog/** will both match /blog/hello. The more specific rule should come first; first match wins.
  • Trailing slash mismatch — /about and /about/ are different paths. Add separate rules or normalize on your origin.
  • Forgetting to update the sitemap — redirected URLs should be removed from the sitemap; the new URLs should be in it.
  • Redirecting to a 404 — we don't validate that the destination exists. Test the new URL before you ship the rule.