Redirects

Oftentimes you’ll need to do either a permanent of temporary redirect of a URL. The most common time for this is when transitioning from one URL scheme to another.

If you’re using Elfin with Netlify, it will automatically generate a Netlify-compatible redirects file.

Types of redirects

Elfin has two types of redirects:

Canonical
Alias

Canonical redirects are permanent (i.e. they are 301 redirects) so they are more suitable to the “moving to a new URL scheme” use-case.

Alias redirects are not (i.e. they are 302 redirects) so they are more suitable to situations where you need some URL to point to an already existing page for a while, but don’t want that redirect cached long-term.

Using redirects

The redirect system is based off of the idea that you have an entry (i.e. a .md file) and you want other URLs to be redirect to the URL for that entry.

If you want to use a Canonical redirect, then add the following to the frontmatter of your entry:

redirect: '/the/other/url'
# Arrays are also supported
redirect:
  - '/yet/another/url'
  - '/a/mysterious/url'

Alias redirects are done the same, but use the “Alias” key:

alias: '/marketing/url/of/some/type'
# Or...
alias:
  - '/holiday/2020'
  - '/all/things/fade/in/time'

Remember that 301 redirects are cached by the browser for a very long time—potentially forever! Only set Canonical redirects when you’re very certain you want them.

The url(s) that you enter under alias or redirect are the from urls, and the permalink of the item you put them on is the to url. The redirect will go from the alias/cannonical redirect to the permalink.