URL Rewriting in Nginx

From the Nginx cheat sheet · Location Blocks & Rewrites · verified Jul 2026

URL Rewriting

Rewriting and redirecting URLs

nginx
# Simple redirect
location /old {
    return 301 /new;
}

# Rewrite rule
location /api {
    rewrite ^/api/(.*) /$1 break;
    proxy_pass http://backend;
}

# Conditional rewrite
if ($request_uri ~* "/old/(.*)") {
    return 301 /new/$1;
}
🔄 rewrite changes URI internally
↪️ return sends redirect to client
🏁 break stops processing, last continues
🎯 Use try_files instead of if when possible

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