urls.md (13469B)
1 ---
2 title: URL Management
3 linktitle: URL Management
4 description: Hugo supports permalinks, aliases, link canonicalization, and multiple options for handling relative vs absolute URLs.
5 date: 2017-02-01
6 publishdate: 2017-02-01
7 lastmod: 2017-03-09
8 keywords: [aliases,redirects,permalinks,urls]
9 categories: [content management]
10 menu:
11 docs:
12 parent: "content-management"
13 weight: 110
14 weight: 110 #rem
15 draft: false
16 aliases: [/extras/permalinks/,/extras/aliases/,/extras/urls/,/doc/redirects/,/doc/alias/,/doc/aliases/]
17 toc: true
18 ---
19
20 ## Permalinks
21
22 The default Hugo target directory for your built website is `public/`. However, you can change this value by specifying a different `publishDir` in your [site configuration][config]. The directories created at build time for a section reflect the position of the content's directory within the `content` folder and namespace matching its layout within the `contentdir` hierarchy.
23
24 The `permalinks` option in your [site configuration][config] allows you to adjust the directory paths (i.e., the URLs) on a per-section basis. This will change where the files are written to and will change the page's internal "canonical" location, such that template references to `.RelPermalink` will honor the adjustments made as a result of the mappings in this option.
25
26 {{% note "Default Publish and Content Folders" %}}
27 These examples use the default values for `publishDir` and `contentDir`; i.e., `public` and `content`, respectively. You can override the default values in your [site's `config` file](/getting-started/configuration/).
28 {{% /note %}}
29
30 For example, if one of your [sections][] is called `posts` and you want to adjust the canonical path to be hierarchical based on the year, month, and post title, you could set up the following configurations in YAML and TOML, respectively.
31
32 ### Permalinks Configuration Example
33
34 {{< code-toggle file="config" copy="false" >}}
35 permalinks:
36 posts: /:year/:month/:title/
37 {{< /code-toggle >}}
38
39 Only the content under `posts/` will have the new URL structure. For example, the file `content/posts/sample-entry.md` with `date: 2017-02-27T19:20:00-05:00` in its front matter will render to `public/2017/02/sample-entry/index.html` at build time and therefore be reachable at `https://example.com/2017/02/sample-entry/`.
40
41 To configure the `permalinks` option for pages in the "root" section, use **/** as the key:
42
43 {{< code-toggle file="config" copy="false" >}}
44 permalinks:
45 /: /:year/:month/:filename/
46 {{< /code-toggle >}}
47
48 If the standard date-based permalink configuration does not meet your needs, you can also format URL segments using [Go time formatting directives](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Time.Format). For example, a URL structure with two digit years and month and day digits without zero padding can be accomplished with:
49
50 {{< code-toggle file="config" copy="false" >}}
51 permalinks:
52 posts: /:06/:1/:2/:title/
53 {{< /code-toggle >}}
54
55 You can also configure permalinks of taxonomies with the same syntax, by using the plural form of the taxonomy instead of the section. You will probably only want to use the configuration values `:slug` or `:title`.
56
57 ### Permalink Configuration Values
58
59 The following is a list of values that can be used in a `permalink` definition in your site `config` file. All references to time are dependent on the content's date.
60
61 `:year`
62 : the 4-digit year
63
64 `:month`
65 : the 2-digit month
66
67 `:monthname`
68 : the name of the month
69
70 `:day`
71 : the 2-digit day
72
73 `:weekday`
74 : the 1-digit day of the week (Sunday = 0)
75
76 `:weekdayname`
77 : the name of the day of the week
78
79 `:yearday`
80 : the 1- to 3-digit day of the year
81
82 `:section`
83 : the content's section
84
85 `:sections`
86 : the content's sections hierarchy. {{< new-in "0.83.0" >}} Since Hugo 0.83 you can use a selection of the sections using _slice syntax_: `:sections[1:]` includes all but the first, `:sections[:last]` includes all but the last, `:sections[last]` includes only the last, `:sections[1:2]` includes section 2 and 3. Note that this slice access will not throw any out-of-bounds errors, so you don't have to be exact.
87
88 `:title`
89 : the content's title
90
91 `:slug`
92 : the content's slug (or title if no slug is provided in the front matter)
93
94 `:slugorfilename`
95 : the content's slug (or filename if no slug is provided in the front matter)
96
97 `:filename`
98 : the content's filename (without extension)
99
100 Additionally, a Go time format string prefixed with `:` may be used.
101
102 ## Aliases
103
104 Aliases can be used to create redirects to your page from other URLs.
105
106 Aliases comes in two forms:
107
108 1. Starting with a `/` meaning they are relative to the `BaseURL`, e.g. `/posts/my-blogpost/`
109 2. They are relative to the `Page` they're defined in, e.g. `my-blogpost` or even something like `../blog/my-blogpost` (new in Hugo 0.55).
110
111 ### Example: Aliases
112
113 Let's assume you create a new piece of content at `content/posts/my-awesome-blog-post.md`. The content is a revision of your previous post at `content/posts/my-original-url.md`. You can create an `aliases` field in the front matter of your new `my-awesome-blog-post.md` where you can add previous paths. The following examples show how to create this field in TOML and YAML front matter, respectively.
114
115 #### TOML Front Matter
116
117 {{< code file="content/posts/my-awesome-post.md" copy="false" >}}
118 +++
119 aliases = [
120 "/posts/my-original-url/",
121 "/2010/01/01/even-earlier-url.html"
122 ]
123 +++
124 {{< /code >}}
125
126 #### YAML Front Matter
127
128 {{< code file="content/posts/my-awesome-post.md" copy="false" >}}
129 ---
130 aliases:
131 - /posts/my-original-url/
132 - /2010/01/01/even-earlier-url.html
133 ---
134 {{< /code >}}
135
136 Now when you visit any of the locations specified in aliases---i.e., *assuming the same site domain*---you'll be redirected to the page they are specified on. For example, a visitor to `example.com/posts/my-original-url/` will be immediately redirected to `example.com/posts/my-awesome-post/`.
137
138 ### Example: Aliases in Multilingual
139
140 On [multilingual sites][multilingual], each translation of a post can have unique aliases. To use the same alias across multiple languages, prefix it with the language code.
141
142 In `/posts/my-new-post.es.md`:
143
144 ```
145 ---
146 aliases:
147 - /es/posts/my-original-post/
148 ---
149 ```
150
151 From Hugo 0.55 you can also have page-relative aliases, so ` /es/posts/my-original-post/` can be simplified to the more portable `my-original-post/`
152
153 ### How Hugo Aliases Work
154
155 When aliases are specified, Hugo creates a directory to match the alias entry. Inside the directory, Hugo creates an `.html` file specifying the canonical URL for the page and the new redirect target.
156
157 For example, a content file at `posts/my-intended-url.md` with the following in the front matter:
158
159 ```
160 ---
161 title: My New post
162 aliases: [/posts/my-old-url/]
163 ---
164 ```
165
166 Assuming a `baseURL` of `example.com`, the contents of the auto-generated alias `.html` found at `https://example.com/posts/my-old-url/` will contain the following:
167
168 ```
169 <!DOCTYPE html>
170 <html>
171 <head>
172 <title>https://example.com/posts/my-intended-url</title>
173 <link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/posts/my-intended-url"/>
174 <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
175 <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
176 <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://example.com/posts/my-intended-url"/>
177 </head>
178 </html>
179 ```
180
181 The `http-equiv="refresh"` line is what performs the redirect, in 0 seconds in this case. If an end user of your website goes to `https://example.com/posts/my-old-url`, they will now be automatically redirected to the newer, correct URL. The addition of `<meta name="robots" content="noindex">` lets search engine bots know that they should not index your alias page (`https://example.com/posts/my-old-url/`).
182
183 ### Customize
184
185 You may customize this alias page by creating an `alias.html` template in the
186 layouts folder of your site (i.e., `layouts/alias.html`). In this case, the data passed to the template is
187
188 `Permalink`
189 : the link to the page being aliased
190
191 `Page`
192 : the Page data for the page being aliased
193
194 ### Important Behaviors of Aliases
195
196 1. Hugo makes no assumptions about aliases. They also do not change based
197 on your UglyURLs setting. You need to provide absolute paths to your web root
198 and the complete filename or directory.
199 2. Aliases are rendered *before* any content are rendered and therefore will be overwritten by any content with the same location.
200
201 ## Pretty URLs
202
203 Hugo's default behavior is to render your content with "pretty" URLs. No non-standard server-side configuration is required for these pretty URLs to work.
204
205 The following demonstrates the concept:
206
207 ```
208 content/posts/_index.md
209 => example.com/posts/
210 content/posts/post-1.md
211 => example.com/posts/post-1/
212 ```
213
214 ## Ugly URLs
215
216 If you would like to have what are often referred to as "ugly URLs" (e.g., example.com/urls.html), set `uglyurls = true` or `uglyurls: true` in your site's `config.toml` or `config.yaml`, respectively. You can also set the `HUGO_UGLYURLS` environment variable to `true` when running `hugo` or `hugo server`.
217
218 If you want a specific piece of content to have an exact URL, you can specify this in the [front matter][] under the `url` key. The following are examples of the same content directory and what the eventual URL structure will be when Hugo runs with its default behavior.
219
220 See [Content Organization][contentorg] for more details on paths.
221
222 ```
223 .
224 └── content
225 └── about
226 | └── _index.md // <- https://example.com/about/
227 ├── posts
228 | ├── firstpost.md // <- https://example.com/posts/firstpost/
229 | ├── happy
230 | | └── ness.md // <- https://example.com/posts/happy/ness/
231 | └── secondpost.md // <- https://example.com/posts/secondpost/
232 └── quote
233 ├── first.md // <- https://example.com/quote/first/
234 └── second.md // <- https://example.com/quote/second/
235 ```
236
237 Here's the same organization run with `hugo --uglyURLs`:
238
239 ```
240 .
241 └── content
242 └── about
243 | └── _index.md // <- https://example.com/about.html
244 ├── posts
245 | ├── firstpost.md // <- https://example.com/posts/firstpost.html
246 | ├── happy
247 | | └── ness.md // <- https://example.com/posts/happy/ness.html
248 | └── secondpost.md // <- https://example.com/posts/secondpost.html
249 └── quote
250 ├── first.md // <- https://example.com/quote/first.html
251 └── second.md // <- https://example.com/quote/second.html
252 ```
253
254
255 ## Canonicalization
256
257 By default, all relative URLs encountered in the input are left unmodified, e.g. `/css/foo.css` would stay as `/css/foo.css`. The `canonifyURLs` field in your site `config` has a default value of `false`.
258
259 By setting `canonifyURLs` to `true`, all relative URLs would instead be *canonicalized* using `baseURL`. For example, assuming you have `baseURL = https://example.com/`, the relative URL `/css/foo.css` would be turned into the absolute URL `https://example.com/css/foo.css`.
260
261 Benefits of canonicalization include fixing all URLs to be absolute, which may aid with some parsing tasks. Note, however, that all modern browsers handle this on the client without issue.
262
263 Benefits of non-canonicalization include being able to have scheme-relative resource inclusion; e.g., so that `http` vs `https` can be decided according to how the page was retrieved.
264
265 {{% note "`canonifyURLs` default change" %}}
266 In the May 2014 release of Hugo v0.11, the default value of `canonifyURLs` was switched from `true` to `false`, which we think is the better default and should continue to be the case going forward. Please verify and adjust your website accordingly if you are upgrading from v0.10 or older versions.
267 {{% /note %}}
268
269 To find out the current value of `canonifyURLs` for your website, you may use the handy `hugo config` command added in v0.13.
270
271 ```
272 hugo config | grep -i canon
273 ```
274
275 Or, if you are on Windows and do not have `grep` installed:
276
277 ```
278 hugo config | FINDSTR /I canon
279 ```
280
281 ## Set URL in Front Matter
282
283 In addition to specifying permalink values in your site configuration for different content sections, Hugo provides even more granular control for individual pieces of content.
284
285 Both `slug` and `url` can be defined in individual front matter. For more information on content destinations at build time, see [Content Organization][contentorg].
286
287 From Hugo 0.55, you can use URLs relative to the current site context (the language), which makes it simpler to maintain. For a Japanese translation, both of the following examples would get the same URL:
288
289 ```markdown
290 ---
291 title: "Custom URL!"
292 url: "/jp/custom/foo"
293 ---
294 ```
295
296 ```markdown
297 ---
298 title: "Custom URL!"
299 url: "custom/foo"
300 ---
301 ```
302
303
304 ## Relative URLs
305
306 By default, all relative URLs are left unchanged by Hugo, which can be problematic when you want to make your site browsable from a local file system.
307
308 Setting `relativeURLs` to `true` in your [site configuration][config] will cause Hugo to rewrite all relative URLs to be relative to the current content.
309
310 For example, if your `/posts/first/` page contains a link to `/about/`, Hugo will rewrite the URL to `../../about/`.
311
312 [config]: /getting-started/configuration/
313 [contentorg]: /content-management/organization/
314 [front matter]: /content-management/front-matter/
315 [multilingual]: /content-management/multilingual/
316 [sections]: /content-management/sections/
317 [usage]: /getting-started/usage/