Static Site Redirects and Rewrites

You can add redirect and rewrite rules to your static sites in the Render Dashboard:

Setting redirect and rewrite rules in the Render Dashboard

When the path of an incoming request matches a rule's Source, Render automatically redirects or rewrites the request to the corresponding Destination. For details, see Rule matching and ordering.

You can't apply redirect/rewrite rules to your domain root.

Each Source requires at least one URL path component (such as /blog, or even /).

Which action to use?

Set each rule's Action to Redirect or Rewrite according to your needs:

Action Description

Action	Description
Redirect	Instructs the browser (or any other client) to switch URLs to the rule's destination via a `301 Moved Permanently` response code. Create a redirect rule if you're moving an existing resource from one path to another (for example, if you move your site's documentation content from `/documentation` to `/docs`).
Rewrite	Does not redirect the browser. Instead, your site serves the content from the rule's destination at the original path. The browser can't detect that content was served from a different path or URL. Create a rewrite rule if: You want to serve the same content from multiple paths. Your static site uses a framework with client-side routing (such as react-router or Vue Router), and you'll handle all requests from a single path like `/index.html`.

Redirect

Instructs the browser (or any other client) to switch URLs to the rule's destination via a 301 Moved Permanently response code.

Create a redirect rule if you're moving an existing resource from one path to another (for example, if you move your site's documentation content from /documentation to /docs).

Rewrite

Does not redirect the browser. Instead, your site serves the content from the rule's destination at the original path. The browser can't detect that content was served from a different path or URL.

Create a rewrite rule if:

You want to serve the same content from multiple paths.
Your static site uses a framework with client-side routing (such as react-router or Vue Router), and you'll handle all requests from a single path like /index.html.

Rule matching and ordering

Render does not apply redirect or rewrite rules to a path if a resource exists at that path. Instead, Render simply serves the resource at that path. This protects against overwriting valid paths with a rule, especially when using wildcards.

Here's what the full path-matching process looks like:

If this process results in a redirect to another site path, the process repeats with the new path.

Rule syntax

Source must be a path (not a full URL). This is matched against the path of the incoming request.
Destination can be either a path or a full, publicly accessible URL.

Basic examples

Source	Destination
`/home`	`/`
`/blog/index.html`	`/blog`
`/web-host`	`https://render.com`

Wildcards

Use a wildcard (*) to match arbitrary strings in a path.

In Source, * matches any string that appears starting at that position in the path.
- Specify /* to match all paths.
In Destination, * applies the entire string captured by the wildcard in Source.

Source	Destination	Example Effect
`/*`	`/blog/*`	`/path1/path2` → `/blog/path1/path2`
`/*`	`/index.html`	All requests → `/index.html`

Placeholders

Use placeholders to include specific path components from Source in Destination:

Source	Destination	Example Effect
`/blog/posts/:postid`	`/blog/:postid`	`/blog/posts/my-post` → `/blog/my-post`
`/updates/:month/:year`	`/changelog/:year/:month`	`/updates/03/2024` → `/changelog/2024/03`