Redirect Checker
Trace HTTP redirect chains, verify redirect types, and detect redirect loops for any URL.
What is Redirect Checker?
HTTP redirects are responses from a web server that tell a browser (and search engine crawlers) that a URL has moved to a different location. The most important redirect type for SEO is the 301 (Permanent Redirect), which transfers approximately 90–99% of the original page's link equity to the destination URL. A 302 (Temporary Redirect) does not transfer link equity, which is why accidentally using 302 instead of 301 during a site migration is a costly SEO mistake. Redirect chains — where URL A redirects to URL B which redirects to URL C — dilute link equity passing through the chain and slow page load times. Redirect loops (A→B→A or A→B→C→A) cause browser errors and make pages completely inaccessible. This tool traces the full redirect path for any URL, showing every hop with HTTP status codes, response times, and the final destination, so you can identify and fix redirect issues before they harm your SEO.
How to Use Redirect Checker
- 1
Enter a URL
Paste any URL — including the original pre-redirect URL you want to trace. The tool follows every HTTP redirect, capturing the status code and response headers at each step.
- 2
View the Redirect Chain
See every hop in the redirect path as a visual chain: URL → 301 → URL → 200 (final destination). Each step shows the status code, response time, and server headers.
- 3
Identify Issues
Redirect chains longer than 2 hops, 302 redirects that should be 301s, and redirect loops are flagged automatically with explanations and fix recommendations.
Use Cases
Post-Migration Redirect Audit
After a website migration or URL restructure, verify that all old URLs correctly redirect to new destinations with 301 status codes. A redirect audit typically checks every old URL from the old sitemap against the redirect rules, ensuring no redirect chains longer than 2 hops and no accidental 302s that would lose link equity.
Diagnosing Mysterious 404 Errors
When Google Search Console reports 404 errors for pages that should exist, a redirect misconfiguration is often the cause. Enter the problematic URL to trace its redirect path — often you'll find a redirect that was supposed to go A→C but instead goes A→B→404, caused by a redirect rule conflict or a missing destination page.
Verifying HTTPS Migration
Migrating from HTTP to HTTPS should involve 301 redirects from every HTTP URL to its HTTPS equivalent. This tool verifies that HTTP URLs redirect to HTTPS (not the other way), that redirects are 301 (not 302), and that there are no mixed protocol loops (HTTP redirecting to HTTPS which redirects back to HTTP for some resources).
Features
Full Chain Tracing
Follows up to 20 redirect hops, capturing each URL, HTTP status code, and response time — giving you the complete redirect path from origin to final destination.
Redirect Loop Detection
Automatically detects redirect loops (where the chain circles back to a previously visited URL) and reports them as errors before they cause browser timeouts.
Status Code Analysis
Identifies and explains each status code in the chain: 301 (permanent), 302 (temporary), 307 (temporary, method-preserving), 308 (permanent, method-preserving), 410 (gone), and others.
Response Header Inspection
Shows Location headers, Cache-Control, and other relevant response headers at each redirect hop — useful for debugging caching issues that cause stale redirects.
Frequently Asked Questions
A 301 redirect signals "this content has permanently moved" and transfers the original URL's link equity (PageRank) to the destination — essential for SEO during site migrations, URL changes, and www/non-www consolidation. A 302 redirect signals "this content has temporarily moved" and does not transfer link equity — the original URL retains its link equity because Google expects it to return. Using 302 when you mean 301 during a migration is a common mistake that results in the new URLs not inheriting the ranking power of the old ones. Always use 301 for permanent URL changes.
Each redirect hop in a chain dilutes link equity slightly. A single 301 redirect passes 90–99% of link equity to the destination, which is considered nearly lossless. Two hops lose a small additional percentage. Three or more hops begin to have a more noticeable impact, and Google's crawlers are also less likely to follow very long chains at all. Best practice: keep redirect chains to a maximum of 2 hops, and prefer direct single-hop redirects wherever possible. Update redirect rules to point directly to the final URL rather than chaining through intermediate URLs.
Redirect loops occur when a redirect chain circles back to a URL it already visited: e.g. A→B→A, or A→B→C→A. Common causes: HTTPS/HTTP redirect conflicts (the server redirects HTTPS to HTTP while also redirecting HTTP to HTTPS), www/non-www redirect conflicts, CDN and server-level redirect rules conflicting with each other, and incorrect .htaccess or Nginx configuration. Fix: identify the conflicting rules by examining server configuration, CDN settings, and application-level redirects. Ensure each layer of redirect configuration agrees on the canonical version of each URL.
Yes. Googlebot follows HTTP redirects, including chains. Google recommends keeping redirect chains short (under 5 hops) but will follow longer chains. The crawl budget concern is real for large sites — each redirect hop counts as a separate crawl request, consuming crawl budget. For smaller sites (under 1,000 pages), redirect chains have negligible crawl budget impact. The SEO concern (link equity dilution) is more practically significant for most websites than crawl budget for redirects.
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