Steps to Redirect URLs Using Nginx

What is a Redirect?

Redirect is the name of a web server function that switches the traffic source of a URL for another. In situations where it is required, it is a crucial attribute. Although there are many different kinds of redirects, the two most often utilized are temporary and permanent. This article will explain the differences between temporary and permanent redirects, force an HTTPS connection to reroute to www and non-www, and provide some examples of redirecting using the vhost file.

Note: No .htaccess rules will apply as this is an Nginx server.

Common Methods for Redirects

If a URL is temporarily being served from a different location, temporary redirects (response code: 302 Found) are helpful. For example, these are helpful for maintenance and can redirect users to a maintenance page.

Permanent redirects (response code: 301 Moved Permanently) notify the browser about the old URL that it should forget and not attempt to access further. These redirects prove helpful when content has moved from one place to another.

How to Redirect?

Nginx is handled within a .conf file located in the document root directory of your site(s), /etc/nginx/sites-available/directory_name.conf. Your site’s files live on the document root directory and it can be in the /html, if you have a single site on the server. In case, there are multiple sites on your server, the root directory can be at /domain.com.

May it be anything, it will be your .conf file name. You will find the default file in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory that can be copied or used to append your redirects. Or a new file name html.conf or domain.com.conf can be created.

Note: In case you select to create a new file ensure to update your symbolic links in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled with the below command:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/domain.com.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/domain.com.conf

First we will cover the example of redirection of a specific page/directory to the new page/directory.

Temporary Page to Page Redirect

server {
# Temporary redirect to an individual page
rewrite ^/oldpage$ http://www.domain.com/newpage redirect;
}

Permanent Page to Page Redirect

server {
# Permanent redirect to an individual page
rewrite ^/oldpage$ http://www.domain.com/newpage permanent;
}

Permanent www to non-www Redirect

server {
# Permanent redirect to non-www
server_name www.domain.com;
rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 permanent;
}

Permanent Redirect to www

server {
# Permanent redirect to www
server_name domain.com;
rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 permanent;
}

Sometimes you will need to change the domain name for a website. Therefore, a redirect from the old sites URL to the new sites URL will be very helpful in helping users know the domain was moved to a new URL.

Now we will check the example of redirecting an old URL to a new URL.

Permanent Redirect to New URL

server {
# Permanent redirect to new URL
server_name olddomain.com;
rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://newdomain.com/$1 permanent;
}

The redirect is added using the rewrite directive discussed earlier. The ^/(.*)$ regular expression will use everything after the / in the URL. For example, http://olddomain.com/index.html will redirect to http://newdomain.com/index.html. For permanent redirect, we add permanent after the rewrite directive as seen in the example code.

In terms of HTTPS and being fully secure, it is ideal for forcing everyone to use https:// instead of http://.

Redirect to HTTPS

server {
# Redirect to HTTPS
listen 80;
server_name domain.com www.domain.com;
return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
}

Now the rewrite rules are in place and it is recommended to test the configuration prior to running a restart. You can check Nginx syntax with the -t flag to ensure there is not a typo present in the file.

Nginx Syntax Check

nginx -t

In case nothing is returned the syntax is correct and Nginx has to be reloaded for the redirects to take effect.

Restarting Nginx

service nginx reload

For CentOS 7 which unlike CentOS 6, uses systemd:

systemctl restart nginx

Redirects on Managed WordPress/WooCommerce

The /home/s#/nginx/redirects.conf file is where you can set redirects if your website is hosted on the Nginx web server. Every site will have a unique s#, or FTP/SSH user, to itself. For assistance with a basic page-to-page redirect, you can download the “Redirection” plugin. Alternatively, you can create more precise redirects using the redirects.conf file or by following the previously provided examples.

Please get in touch with our help and request that Nginx be reloaded after you have correctly configured the rules in the redirects.conf file. If you feel uneasy completing the aforementioned steps, please get in touch with our support team via phone, chat, or ticket. Our support staff is here to assist you with this around-the-clock.