Recommended rules

Use Cloudflare Page Rules to improve the user experience of your domain with hardened security and enhanced site performance, while increasing reliability and minimizing bandwidth usage for your origin server.

Caution

Consider alternative Rules options due to their enhanced configurability. Refer to the migration guide for details.

For more flexibility and customization, consider using Snippets.

Keep in mind that not all rules will be right for everyone, but these are some of the most popular.

• 301/302 Forwarding URL
• Security Level and Cache Level
• Edge Cache TTL, Always Online, and Browser Cache TTL

301/302 Forwarding URL

Note

Consider using Single Redirects or Bulk Redirects to forward or redirect traffic to a different URL due to ease of use, maintenance, and cost. You should only use Page Rules when Dynamic or Bulk Redirects do not meet your use case.

Two common examples for using forwarding URLs are:

• Defining the root as the canonical version of your domain.
• Directing visitors to a specific page with an easy to remember URL.

This example page rule configuration defines the root as the canonical version of your domain:

• If the URL matches: *www.example.com/*
• Setting: Forwarding URL | Select status code: 301 Permanent Redirect
• Enter destination URL: https://example.com/$2

This example redirects visitors to a specific page with an easy to remember URL:

• If the URL matches: *www.example.com/fb*
• Setting: Forwarding URL | Select status code: 302 Temporary Redirect
• Enter destination URL: https://www.facebook.com/username

Security Level and Cache Level

Certain sections of a website, like the login or admin section, have different security and performance requirements than your general public-facing pages.

The following example page rule configuration performs several security and cache adjustments for requests targeting a specific path:

• If the URL matches: example.com/user*
• Setting: Security Level | Value: High
• Setting: Cache Level | Value: Bypass
• Setting: Disable Apps

Edge Cache TTL and Browser Cache TTL

Certain resources on your domain will likely not change often. For these resources, taking advantage of aggressive caching options can significantly reduce the load on your server and bandwidth utilization.

Examples

In the following example page rule configuration, the target is a folder that holds the majority of the image assets as well as some other types of multimedia.

• If the URL matches: example.com/sites/default/files*
• Setting: Browser Cache TTL | Value: a day
• Setting: Cache Level | Value: Cache Everything
• Setting: Edge Cache TTL | Value: 7 days

The following example page rule configuration applies unique rules for critical pages that do not change very often.

• If the URL matches: example.com/terms-of-service
• Setting: Browser Cache TTL | Value: a day
• Setting: Always Online | Value: On
• Setting: Cache Level | Value: Cache Everything
• Setting: Edge Cache TTL | Value: a month