CloudFlare adds granular controls and redirects

Several months ago I use CloudFlare to optimize resource consumption of various websites and, as I got to know him, I discovered that it is also useful to do, in a very simple, several operations that are burdensome and could cost important. This is something that is very clear, if we see the latest addition which premiered at the service: PageRules .

What is it? Is the ability to selectively enable and disable various features native or offered by third parties, simply create rules based on URL patterns. Entering an address that can take as a wildcard asterisks, we can indicate whether a subdomain or directory applications available, the cache service, performance improvements and security measures, without affecting the rest of the site.

For example, if we have a very particular plugin for the WordPress administration area that is incompatible with CloudFlare, we can disable it only for the directory wp-admin . Even if you want to disable Google Analytics on error pages, simply enter the URL for the service to avoid adding the code automatically.

But even more interesting use is that of redirection : in a very simple, you can create friendly URLs that go to our site or external sites, without recourse to rules .htaccess or send additional traffic to our server. This is something that is not always enabled on hostings or even may require us to hire more expensive packages but do not need all its features.

Despite the ease of use, really are powerful tools that give us great flexibility to administer our site, even if we do not need the main functions offered by CloudFlare. The only detail is that we only have three rules free but must request a payment plan for more. Still, with a little ingenuity, you can get much benefit.