---
title: No location.assign or location.href navigation to relative URLs
---

> Prevent usage of `location.assign()` or `location.href` assignment to navigate to internal Next.js pages.

## Why This Error Occurred

`location.assign()` or `location.href = ...` was used to navigate to a relative URL. In Next.js, this bypasses the client-side router, causing a full page reload and losing any prefetched data or state managed by the framework.

## Possible Ways to Fix It

### During the render phase

Use [`redirect()`](/docs/app/api-reference/functions/redirect) from `next/navigation`:

```tsx filename="app/page.tsx"
import { redirect } from 'next/navigation'

export default function Page() {
  redirect('/dashboard')
}
```

```tsx filename="app/components/my-component.tsx"
'use client'

import { redirect } from 'next/navigation'

export default function MyComponent({
  isAuthorized,
}: {
  isAuthorized: boolean
}) {
  if (!isAuthorized) {
    redirect('/login')
  }
  return <div>Protected content</div>
}
```

### In Client Components (event handlers)

Use [`useRouter().push()`](/docs/app/api-reference/functions/use-router) from `next/navigation`:

```tsx filename="app/components/my-button.tsx"
'use client'

import { useRouter } from 'next/navigation'

export default function MyButton() {
  const router = useRouter()

  return (
    <button onClick={() => router.push('/dashboard')}>Go to Dashboard</button>
  )
}
```

### External URLs

If you are navigating to an external URL (one with a protocol, e.g. `https://`), `location.assign()` and `location.href` are acceptable and will not trigger this rule:

```js
// Allowed — navigating to an external site
location.href = 'https://example.com'
window.location.assign('https://example.org/path')
```

## Useful Links

- [Redirecting in Next.js](/docs/app/guides/redirecting)
- [Linking and Navigating in Next.js](/docs/app/getting-started/linking-and-navigating)
- [`redirect` API Reference](/docs/app/api-reference/functions/redirect)
- [`useRouter` API Reference](/docs/app/api-reference/functions/use-router)