Redirects and Rewrites

The terms “redirect” and “rewrite” refer to different ways of handling HTTP requests, and they serve distinct purposes in web development:

Redirect

A redirect is an HTTP response that instructs the client’s browser to make a new request to a different URL. This involves a round-trip to the server.

HTTP Status Codes: Commonly uses status codes like 301 (Moved Permanently) or 302 (Found/Temporary Redirect).

Client-Side Action: The browser updates the URL in the address bar to the new location specified in the Location header of the response.

Use Cases:

  • Moving content to a new URL to avoid a broken link when the address of a page changes.
  • To avoid a broken link when a user makes a predictable typo in an address.

SEO Impact: A 301 redirect passes most of the SEO value from the old URL to the new one, while a 302 redirect does not.

Rewrite

A rewrite (also called a 200 Redirect) modifies the URL path internally on the server without changing the URL in the client’s browser. The client is unaware of the rewrite.

No HTTP Status Code: Since the rewrite is internal, it doesn’t involve sending a new HTTP status code to the client.

Server-Side Action: The server processes the request as if it was made to the rewritten URL.

Use Cases:

  • Serving a single-page application (SPA) by rewriting all paths to index.html.
  • Handling legacy URLs without changing the visible URL structure.

SEO Impact: Since the URL in the browser doesn’t change, rewrites don’t directly impact SEO.

Pattern

Using static paths:

SourceDestination
/home/

Using wildcards:

SourceDestinationExample Effect
/guide/*/blog/*/guide/path1 → /blog/path1
/cms/*/*/cms/path1 → /path1

Using placeholders:

SourceDestinationExample Effect
/docs/:any/:any/docs/introduction → /introduction
/blog/posts/:postid/blog/:postid/blog/posts/123 → /blog/123
/updates/:year/:month/changelog/:year/:month/updates/2023/10 → /changelog/2023/10