Redirects, rewrites and SPA routing with _redirects

A _redirects file at the root of your upload controls how URLs are handled. Each line is a rule: from, to, and an optional status code.

Moved pages

/old-page        /new-page        301
/2024/pricing    /pricing         301

Use 301 for permanent moves (search engines update their index) and 302 for temporary ones.

Splats

* matches everything after a prefix, available as :splat:

/blog/*          /posts/:splat    301

Placeholders

Name a path segment and reuse it:

/docs/:section/:page    /guide/:section/:page    301

Rewrites (status 200)

A 200 rule serves a different file without changing the URL — the basis of single-page apps:

/app/*           /app/index.html  200
/*               /index.html      200

Forced rules

Normally, if a file exists at the requested path it’s served and the rule is skipped. Add ! to apply the rule anyway:

/index.html      /                301!

Custom 404 page

Add a 404.html at the root and it’s used for missing pages with a proper 404 status. You can also send specific paths to it:

/private/*       /404.html        404

Order matters

Rules are checked top to bottom and the first match wins, so put specific rules before general ones like /*.

Headers too

A _headers file sets response headers per path:

/assets/*
  Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable
/embed/*
  Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *