Active Only Means It Was Saved, Not That It Ran

Active only means it was saved, not that it ran


The rule sits in the list where you left it. Its switch shows Active, the dashboard is green, and the URL still loads the previous page. Nothing in the panel looks wrong, because nothing there is. Active means the setting was accepted and is eligible to run; it says nothing about whether any request ever arrived at it.



Matching is where most of an afternoon goes, and one quirk accounts for more of it than the rest together. A wildcard is compared against the whole address, the query string included, so a pattern that does not end open will skip any request bearing parameters. That is exactly what happens when you append something to bypass the browser cache: the cache-buster defeats the pattern instead, the page loads normally, and you conclude the rule is broken. Operators differ in whether they care about capitals, which turns a path copied from a design document into a rule that matches nothing. Bulk lists behave the other way round and disregard parameters entirely, but subpath and subdomain coverage stay disabled unless enabled, and a list that no rule enables does nothing at all.


Something may have responded before your turn


Rules products operate in a fixed order, and a redirect ends evaluation the instant it triggers. Two settings that cover the same address are not a draw: the first one hit prevails, and the product order determines which that is. Older forwarding settings yield to the modern products, which seems like welcome news until the new pattern fails — then the old one activates, the visitor arrives somewhere nobody configured this week, and the symptom stops resembling a redirect issue at all. Reading the order is quicker than changing either one.



The complete write-up, with every step and what each answer resolves: page rules deprecated



The order is what saves the evening: did it arrive, did the template match it, did something respond sooner, and are you viewing a plain query rather than a browser tab that may be showing you yesterday. Each question is answered once, and the one that comes back wrong is the one to fix.