Pipeline-Free URL Redirects in AEM as a Cloud Service

In Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service, managing redirects efficiently is essential for maintaining SEO ranking, user experience, and link consistency when pages are moved, renamed, or deleted. The new pipeline-free URL redirects feature allows teams to manage redirects easily without needing a full pipeline deployment.

This feature is especially useful when marketing or content teams handle redirects directly without relying on developer or DevOps pipelines.

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When to Use Pipeline-Free Redirects

Pipeline-free redirects are ideal in the following scenarios:

• When business or marketing users need to add or modify redirects quickly.
• If your team manages thousands of redirects and doesn’t want to trigger a Cloud Manager pipeline each time.
• When using UI-based tools such as ACS Commons Redirect Manager or Redirect Map Manager.
• When redirect management is part of daily operations rather than code deployments.

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How It Works

Pipeline-free redirects are stored in a publish repository and mapped dynamically by the AEM Dispatcher configuration. Here’s how it functions step-by-step:

1. Redirect mappings are stored in one or more rewrite map files inside the /content/dam repository.
2. A configuration file, such as managed-rewrite-maps.yaml, defines which rewrite maps to load from the repository.
3. The AEM Dispatcher (Apache) loads and caches these maps for use in URL rewriting.

maps:
  - name: my.map
    path: /content/dam/redirectmaps/mysite-redirectmap.txt

The above YAML tells AEM where to find your redirect map file stored in the DAM.

Apache Rewrite Rule Example

RewriteMap map.foo dbm=sdbm:/tmp/rewrites/my.map
RewriteCond ${map.foo:$1} !=""
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ${map.foo:$1|/} [L,R=301]

When a request matches an entry in the rewrite map, Apache issues a 301 Redirect to the mapped destination.

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Configuration Options

Adobe provides several useful configuration options to control reload frequency and startup behavior:

• TTL (time-to-live): Defines how often Apache reloads the rewrite map. Default is 300 seconds.
• wait: If set to true, Apache waits until the map is fully loaded before serving requests (avoiding temporary inconsistencies).
• Entry limit: Each redirect map entry supports up to 1024 characters.

Example:

maps:
  - name: my.map
    path: /content/dam/redirectmaps/mysite-redirectmap.txt
    ttl: 600
    wait: true

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Things to Remember

• Use this method only for redirects, not for complex rewrite logic.
• Ensure redirect maps are updated and published to the correct environments (e.g., stage, production).
• Keep the number of maps manageable — each map file can contain thousands of entries efficiently.
• Monitor redirect performance via logs or Cloud Manager metrics.

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Summary

The pipeline-free URL redirect feature in AEM Cloud gives organizations flexibility and speed. Redirects can now be managed dynamically from the AEM repository without triggering a deployment pipeline. This empowers content teams to maintain SEO and user navigation effectively while keeping developers focused on core code changes.

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Tags: AEM Cloud, Adobe Experience Manager, URL Redirects, Pipeline-Free Redirects, AEM Dispatcher, Cloud Manager, ACS Commons