URL wildcards and custom aliases
This page is for website creators who need addresses the content tree does not make by itself: short campaign
addresses, friendly addresses for module pages (/login), and patterns that send a whole family of old addresses to
new ones. Reference: Links, URL aliases, wildcards and search statistics.
Contents
- Three kinds of addresses
- Global URL aliases
- URL wildcards
- Redirect or direct
- Order of resolution
- Examples
Three kinds of addresses
| Kind | Made where | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Node alias | automatically, and on the node's URL aliases tab | /About-us |
| Global alias | Setup > URL translator (/content/urltranslator) | login for user/login |
| Wildcard | Setup > URL wildcards (/content/urlwildcards) | news/* to articles/{1} |
Global URL aliases
Fields: New URL alias (without host and leading slash), Destination (a module view such as user/login or an
existing address), Language, Include in other languages, and Alias should redirect to its destination.
An alias to content/view/full/<node> becomes an alias of that node and appears on the node's tab instead. The list
marks aliases whose module no longer exists.
URL wildcards
Each * in the pattern matches any text; {1}, {2} in the destination put it back. The page refuses a destination
that uses a placeholder the pattern has no * for. Try an address shows which wildcard an address matches, what it
becomes and whether visitors are redirected, without changing anything.
| Pattern | Destination | news/2026/october becomes |
|---|---|---|
news/* | articles/{1} | articles/2026/october |
news/*/* | archive/{2}/{1} | archive/october/2026 |
old-blog/* | https://blog.example.org/{1} | a redirect to the other site |
Redirect or direct
| Redirect (301) | Direct | |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor sees | the destination's address | the address they typed |
| Search engines | index the destination | may index both |
| Use for | old addresses, short campaign addresses | friendly addresses for module views |
Prefer redirect: one address per page is better for search engines.
Order of resolution
- URL aliases (node and global) first.
- Wildcards only when no alias matches, in the order they were created; the first match wins.
- Otherwise the module view itself (
/content/view/...), else "not found".
A wildcard that "does nothing" is usually shadowed by an alias or an older wildcard.
Examples
- Print campaign:
autumnredirects to/Campaigns/Autumn-2026. - Sign-in:
logintouser/login, direct. - Old site:
products/*.htmlcannot be expressed literally;products/*toProducts/{1}with the old.htmladdresses handled as aliases on the nodes that differ.
To create many global URL aliases and wildcards at once from a file (CSV, Excel, or the old site's Apache or nginx rules), import a URL map: Migrating URLs.
Related pages
- Migrating URLs
- Redirects and moved content
- URL aliases and nice URLs
- Settings page
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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