Preferred way to do redirects (rewrite or return)

Server NGINX
#1

What is the preferred way to do redirects? I know of two solutions:

rewrite “^/help/?$” https://support.mydomain.com permanent;

or

location ^/help/?$ {
return 301 https://support.mydomain.com;
}

I think I like using a location block and a return statement. Which is
faster though and the standard?

Posted at Nginx Forum:
http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,243075,243075#msg-243075

#2

On Tuesday 24 September 2013 00:38:53 justin wrote:

I think I like using a location block and a return statement. Which is
faster though and the standard?

Faster:

location =/help { return 301 https://support.mydomain.com; }
location =/help/ { return 301 https://support.mydomain.com; }

wbr, Valentin V. Bartenev