Returning "website:<uuid>" from a component while in pre-execution does not prevent the page from being rendered. Possibly because the view is not resolved before the ModelAndView is grabbed into the pre-execution context.

If the cache or the gzip filter is enabled the controller is pre-executed, the return is not interpreted as a redirect, the page is then rendered, and when the view is inserted into the output the response header is set and the cache/gzip filter ignores the buffered page output and sends only the redirect header. With these filters disabled the page is rendered and no redirect is sent.