# Server-side redirection

Enable server-side redirection (Netlify only)

Hugo supports [client-side redirection using aliases](https://gohugo.io/content-management/urls/#aliases). In this approach, the browser receives an instruction to redirect to a new URL when visiting the initial page. We can instruct the server to redirect the URL instead, thus saving an additional round-trip.

Hinode has defined a template in [layouts/index.redir](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gethinode/hinode/main/layouts/index.redir) to automatically generate server-side redirection rules for **Netlify**. When you add the status code `200` to such a rule, the [redirection becomes a rewrite](https://docs.netlify.com/routing/redirects/rewrites-proxies/). In a **rewrite**, the URL in the visitor's address bar remains the same, while the content is fetched from a different location behind the scenes. We will use this mechanism to fetch the content from the branch site.

The below settings creates a file `public/_redirects` when building the site. It is suggested to add these settings to your **production configuration** in `config/production/hugo.toml`. The setting `disableAliases` disables all client-side redirection rules. Instead, the `REDIR` output generates all redirection rules for the server, including rewrites.

```toml
disableAliases = true

[outputFormats.REDIR]
mediaType = "text/netlify"
baseName = "_redirects"
isPlainText = true
notAlternative = true

[mediaTypes."text/netlify"]
delimiter = ""

[outputs]
home = ["HTML", "RSS", "REDIR", "netlify", "server"]
```