Sending one address to another.
WHAT THEY DO
Redirect a URL or pattern to another, at the edge, before the request reaches us.
WHEN THIS IS USEFUL
Redirecting a parked domain to your main site Forcing www or non-www consistently Redirecting old URLs after a restructure Redirecting a retired subdomain
WHY AT CLOUDFLARE RATHER THAN IN HTACCESS
The request never reaches us, so it consumes none of your resources.
For a domain that exists only to redirect, this means you need no hosting for it at all.
THE CAUTION
Do not combine a Cloudflare redirect with one at our end doing the same thing. That produces a loop.
Choose one place.
FOR WWW CONSISTENCY
Pick one form, redirect the other, and make sure your application's site URL matches.
Three mechanisms disagreeing is the usual cause of a redirect loop.
PERMANENT VERSUS TEMPORARY
Use a permanent redirect for anything lasting, so search engines transfer the ranking.
TESTING
In a private window, since browsers cache redirects aggressively and will keep showing an old one.
