How to Set Up 301 Redirects in Webflow (Including Wildcards)

When you need a redirect in Webflow

Add a 301 whenever a URL that was live stops working at that address:

• You change a page or CMS item slug.
• You delete a page or item that had traffic or links.
• You move a section, for example /blog/ to /articles/.
• You move a site to Webflow from WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or anything else.

Webflow does not add these for you when you rename a slug. Without a redirect the old URL returns a 404, and any rankings and links it had are lost over time. Google treats a 301 as a strong signal that the new URL should replace the old one in results (Google, redirects and Google Search).

Single redirects

1. Open Site settings > Publishing > 301 redirects.
2. In Old path, enter the path only, starting with a slash: /tents-guide.
3. In Redirect to path, enter the new path (/guides/tents) or a full URL on another domain.
4. Click Add redirect path, then publish the site.

If a page or CMS item still exists at the old path, Webflow will not save the rule. Change that page's slug, delete it, or unpublish or archive the item first (Webflow Help, setting up redirects).

Wildcard redirects with (.*) and %1

A capture group (.*) matches any text. %1 puts the first match into the new path, %2 the second, and so on.

Two cautions:

• Test the pattern on a few real URLs before you publish. A broad pattern can catch pages you did not mean to move.
• Special characters need escaping in the Old path. Webflow's help lists %, -, &, *, (, ), =, _, + and ? as characters to escape with a % in front, and only in the Old path field. For example, to redirect /?category=food you write %?category%=food. If a rule with a hyphen in a wildcard does not fire, escaping is the first thing to check.

Rule order: why your specific redirect never fires

Webflow tries redirects in the order they were created, oldest first. The first rule that matches wins. So if you created /blog/(.*) to /articles/%1 in March and /blog/old-post to /guides/new-post in June, the June rule never runs: the wildcard catches the URL first.

How to avoid it:

1. Add specific rules before broad wildcard rules.
2. If you need to add a specific rule later, delete the wildcard, add the specific rule, then add the wildcard again so it is newer.
3. Check the order by filtering the 301 list by Date created.

Bulk redirects with CSV, without wiping old ones

For migrations, use Import and Export in the 301 panel. The CSV has two columns: old path and redirect-to path, one row per rule.

The trap: importing a CSV replaces all existing redirects on the site. Webflow's own advice is to export your current rules, add the new rows to that file, then import the combined file (Webflow Help, import and export 301 redirects). Then publish.

Order matters here too. Put specific rows above wildcard rows in the file.

How many redirects can Webflow handle?

Webflow has no hard limit, but it recommends 1,000 rules at most. Every rule ships in a file the site loads, so a very long list adds weight. Replace long lists of one-to-one rules with wildcards wherever the old and new URLs follow a pattern.

Redirects on localized sites

Redirects are relative to the root domain and do not apply to localized paths on their own. If both /old-url and /es/old-url should go to the new page, add two rules. Plan this during a migration: a site with four locales needs four times the rules unless a wildcard covers them.

After you publish: test and clean up

1. Open each old URL in a private window, or test a list with the free redirect checker. Each should return 301 and land on the new page in one hop.
2. Fix chains. If A goes to B and B now goes to C, point A straight at C.
3. Update internal links, navigation and buttons to the new URLs, so visitors and crawlers do not pass through redirects at all.
4. Make sure the sitemap only lists the new URLs. Webflow builds it on publish.
5. Watch Search Console > Indexing > Pages for "Not found (404)" and "Page with redirect" over the next few weeks. "Page with redirect" for the old URLs is normal and expected.

Worked example (fictional site). brightsmile-dental.com moved from WordPress to Webflow. Old posts lived at /news/teeth-whitening-tips, new ones at /blog/teeth-whitening-tips. One wildcard, /news/(.*) to /blog/%1, covered 180 posts. The six service pages that changed names got single rules, added before the wildcard. The whole map was 7 rules instead of 186.