Nginx HTTP Server - Fourth Edition

Search order and priority

Since it's possible to define multiple location blocks with different patterns, you need to understand that, when Nginx receives a request, it searches for the location block that best matches the requested URI:

server { 
    server_name website.com; 
    location /files/ { 
    # applies to any request starting with "/files/" 
    # for example /files/doc.txt, /files/, /files/temp/ 
    } 
    location = /files/ { 
    # applies to the exact request to "/files/" 
    # and as such does not apply to /files/doc.txt 
    # but only /files/ 
    } 
} 

When a client visits http://website.com/files/doc.txt, the first location block applies. However, when they visit http://website.com/files/, the second block applies (even though the first one matches) because it has priority ...