How To Use Cloudflare Bulk Redirects Instead of Page Rules

I like using Cloudflare to process the redirection of my affiliate links. It spares my origin server the extra traffic and results in a faster redirect experience for my visitors. I’d used Page Rules to achieve these redirects for a long time. But the recent tool from Cloudflare called Bulk Redirects offers a better alternative. Here’s how to use it.

Cloudflare Bulk Redirects vs Page Rules

Bulk redirects from Cloudflare let you create “redirect lists”, and switch them on or off with the click of a button. This tool renders page redirects obsolete. Cloudflare page rules are very limited. With a free account, you only get 5-page rules. With bulk redirects, you get 20 redirects on the free plan and 500 redirects on the Pro plan.

This not only quadruples the number of redirects for free users but also releases page rules for more interesting operations. So you’d be a fool to continue using Cloudflare page rules for redirects.

Setting up a Bulk Redirect List

Starting a Cloudflare bulk redirect list is easy. Log into your dashboard, go to “Rules” and click “Bulk Redirects” as shown here:

In the following screen, click “Create a new Bulk Redirects” list:

On the same screen, you can see your remaining quota. Almost everyone gets 15 rules – but each rule is a list. So it’s not as if you’re limited to only 15 redirects. In the next screen, click “Create a new list like this:

This will bring up the list configuration screen where you can give your list a name. In the “Content-type” radio box, choose “Redirect” as shown here:

Click “Create”. On the next screen, it’s time to enter the source and target URLs like this:

Free Cloudflare accounts can create up to a maximum of 20 entries in this list. Pro accounts can use up to 500 redirect rules. You can choose the type of redirect for each redirection – 301, 302 et. Once you’re done, save your changes.

The final step is to activate the list. Go to the first screen where you started the process, and you’ll see your new redirect list on the bottom with an option to enable it as shown here:

And you’re done! Now you can test your bulk redirects and ensure everything’s working fine.

Bulk Redirects Work with Transform Rules

Earlier, I’d written about Cloudflare’s Transform Rules that allow you to change the response headers of your site’s pages using Cloudflare. If you used Page Rules or workers to achieve the redirect, these transform rules won’t work. Bulk redirects and transform rules work together, so you can send important response headers along with the redirects. For affiliate links, these response headers are “noindex” and “nofollow” via the X-Robots-Tag.

By releasing these tools for free Cloudflare is making it a lot easier for users to manage their websites without changing code at the backend.

Cloudflare is Winning vs QUIC.cloud

I’ve written before about how QUIC.cloud aims to rival Cloudflare. But Cloudflare has a huge head start. The one thing that QUIC.cloud does better than Cloudflare is caching dynamic WordPress pages, which you can achieve on Cloudflare using plugins. But other than that, Cloudflare’s toolkit is far superior. With bulk redirects and transform rules, Cloudflare is cementing its lead, and I don’t think QUIC.cloud is moving fast enough to catch up.