Redirect vs Page Rules: Best Practices for 301 Redirects After Migration

General Rules
1

What is the name of the domain?

example.com

What is the error number?

301

What is the error message?

301

What is the issue you’re encountering

Redirect

What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?

I recently migrated my website from an old domain to a new one using 301 redirects. I noticed that Cloudflare offers two potential solutions for managing redirects: Redirect Rules and Page Rules.

I currently have a few questions about these options:

Performance and SEO: Are there any performance or SEO-related advantages to using Redirect Rules instead of Page Rules for handling 301 redirects? Does Google treat them differently?

Limits: I understand that there are certain limits on the number of Redirect Rules and Page Rules (e.g., 3 Page Rules for free plans). Can wildcard patterns in Redirect Rules help me manage multiple redirects efficiently, even within these limits?

Best Practices: If both methods can technically handle 301 redirects, which one is generally recommended for domain migrations? Are there any drawbacks to relying on Page Rules for this purpose?

2

We strongly suggest that you use Redirect Rules: Page Rules migration guide · Cloudflare Rules docs.

The more rules you have, the bigger the difference between performance of Redirect Rules (and modern Cloudflare Rules in general) and Page Rules will be. Redirect Rules are more scalable, offer flexible and versatile configurations and are generally easier to troubleshoot with Trace.

Free users get 10 Redirect Rules by default, and with wildcard support each rule can cover for thousands, if not millions of URLs.