Redirecting URLs with Cloudflare Page Rules

Overview

For technical users, the Cloudflare Page Rules service offers an alternative to link shorteners such as bit.ly and Owly. All domains configured within your Cloudflare account are available to use with the Page Rule URL redirection service.

Once configured, users can redirect a URL such as: https://example.com/my-redirect to https://example-of-a-convoluted-url-that-is-difficult-to-remember.org/some-long-extension.

Details

Navigate to the Cloudflare dashboard -> Page Rules menu then select Create Page Rule:

Image of cloudflare page rules menu

Create the Page Rule forwarding event by filling in the following fields. In this example, I will redirect jasonmurray.org/calendar to my public Office 365 calendar:

  • Source URL: jasonmurray.org/calendar
  • Type: Forwarding URL
  • Redirect type: 301 - Permanent Redirect
  • Destination URL: example.com/very-long-url-that-users-would-not-want-to-type-in

Image of filled in cloudflare page rules

Wait a few minutes for the changes to deploy, then enter https://jasonmurray.org/calendar in the URL bar:

Image of browser with URL bar going to jasonmurray.org/calendar

The domain redirects to the very long Office 365 public calendar URL:

Image of office 365 public calendar