The Redirect Compass: Managing Redirects in AEM Projects
URL redirects might not be the most exciting part of an AEM project, but they're absolutely critical. From content migrations to SEO preservation, the humble redirect keeps digital experiences running smoothly. Yet despite their importance, many projects struggle with finding the right approach to managing them effectively. In this session, we want to provide a practical roadmap for redirect management in AEM.
We'll break down redirects into their different categories, including:
- Technical Redirects (e.g. protocol switches, extension enforcement)
- Redirects based on additional information (e.g Geolocation)
- Editorial Redirects
- SEO Redirects
Then we'll look at the available options across the architectural layers:
- Edge (CDN/Edge Delivery)
- Performance-critical and high-volume redirects
- Adobe CDN Pipeline Limitations
- Caching of redirects
- Dispatcher
- New Pipeline-free URL Redirects (maintained in AEM)
- Static redirect maps deployed through the pipeline
- AEM
- Content-aware and dynamic redirects
- Implementation approaches:
- Vanity URLs
- Redirect pages and properties
- Sling mappings
- ACS AEM Commons solutions (Redirect Map Manager and Redirect Manager)
Throughout the talk, we'll evaluate the options against the key considerations:
- Performance
- Flexibility
- Maintainability/Scale
- Version control and deployment considerations
Based on this information, we want to provide practical insights on selecting the right redirect solutions for your specific use cases and technical constraints.
Arko
In the redirect acs commons tool, can we also promote the redirects across multiple environments? Or we create it for every environment?
Yegor Kozlov
The easiest way would be to export the redirects into a spreadsheet on the source env and import on the target
Ina Kupp
You could use the copy content feature in cloud manager as everything is content but only from higher Environment lo lower.
Konrad
Under which circumstances would you recommend ACS AEM Commons Redirect Map Manager over ACS AEM Commons Redirect Manager for authorable redirects? Usually CDN caches redirects just fine (evaluating the Cache-Control headers) although Dispatcher doesn't. For me this is just more brittle due to the additional export.
Martin
I think a good use case is for huge legacy migration mappings that are not changed often and which you don't want to clutter the other UIs with. Put these into maps and the ones relevant for the current site structure into the Redirect Manager. As I mentioned, mix & match - but be intentional about it. Also, if you don't have a CDN or other reverse proxy where you could cache redirects in, it's really the only option for authorable redirects which are not processed in AEM.
wolf
Are the solutions presented domain aware on the input? Not every redirect is supposed to be valid on every domain the server hosts. It’s one of the limits of Sling Vanity URLs as well: they are too broad.
Masoud Rozati
"domain aware" or "context aware" is what we referred to as multi tenant setup. So, if you look at the slide 17 you'll see in the overview table that three solutions fit in this criteria: Redirect Manager, pipeline-free and mod_rewrite (provided you have different vhosts for different domains).
Konrad
Why do you consider performance relevant given that CDN always caches redirects (when they have a proper TTL)?
Masoud Rozati
Well, caching redirects at CDN definitely reduces the performance drawbacks and is what we generally recommend. Still, if you have several thousands of redirects to process at AEM Publish, you still have some overhead. Also on-prem solutions without CDN cannot leverage caching. So, performance is a valid consideration.
Helge
What means redirects are costly on the publishers? What is the justification for a more complex infra (cdn by different provider) vs having them on the system that actually also hosts the content?
Masoud Rozati
Suppose you have tons of redirects and no CDN. The Dispatcher don't cache redirect responses. That means every single request that gets redirected hits your publish tier, should go through all the logic (in best case it's the rules match process of Redirect manager, in worst case the sling:mappings of vanity URLs). This will increase the load of your publish instance and it's memory foot print. Also the response time is not as fast for the end user as with a caching layer.
Martin
When you're relying solely on solutions that are processed directly by the publisher without caching, you'll run into performance problems sooner or later as your redirect inventory grows (e.g. memory issues with the redirect cache or the explosion of sling mappings). Also it will add latency as your publishers will have a lot of other things to do besides serving redirects. This is why you want to offload. You don't need a CDN by a different provider for that, Adobe CDN is perfectly fine for this.
Amine
from SEO perspective are the CDN redirections the most recommended ?
Martin
No, for SEO it is most important that your redirects are well maintained: Not too much chaining, no 404 targets and that the targets are actually relevant (e.g. don't blanket redirect-to-home). And this is probably easier to achieve if the redirects are maintained in a place where business can access and update them. It doesn't hurt though if they're delivered fast (especially when multiple hops are involved) and don't wake the publisher, and this is where the CDN comes in.
RikVB
Can you use regex in the dispatcher pipeline-free method?
Masoud Rozati
as of now, no, you can't. Because pipeline free redirect uses TXT maps. That means the lookup key is a exact match of the string.
luka.romanov
Is the Pipeline-free available also for onpremise?
Masoud Rozati
No, pipeline free redirect is currently supported in AEMaaCS. But in on-prem setup you have full access to your Apache server. So, you can implement your own cron job that polls the maps from publish and reloads the apache config.