URL Redirects Test
The URL Redirect Checker traces the full redirect chain for any URL — every hop, every status code, every Location header — from the original request to the final destination.
- Results in seconds
- Pass / fail + fix guidance
- No account required
The URL Redirect Checker traces the full redirect chain for any URL — every hop, every status code, every Location header — from the original request to the final destination. We flag chains longer than two hops (which leak link equity and waste crawl budget), redirect loops (which break crawling entirely), and mixed 301/302 patterns (which signal "temporary" to Google when you mean "permanent"). The output is a clean visual trace plus a fix recommendation for each problem hop.
What This Tool Checks
- Every redirect hop with status code (301, 302, 303, 307, 308)
- Final destination URL and HTTP status
- Total chain length (target: 0 or 1 hops)
- Redirect loops (circular redirects)
- Mixed 301 / 302 within the same chain
- Cross-protocol hops (HTTP -> HTTPS)
- Cross-host hops (legacy domain -> new domain)
Why It Matters for SEO
Each redirect adds latency (real milliseconds users wait), and chains of more than 3 hops cause Google to give up following them — orphaning the destination URL. Worse, every hop dilutes link equity passed from the original URL. A page with strong inbound links lose ranking power every time those backlinks have to chain through redirects to reach the live page. Collapsing chains to a single 301 is one of the highest-ROI technical SEO fixes.
How to Fix It
Collapse every chain to a single 301 redirect from the source URL to the final destination. Update internal links to point directly to the final URL so Googlebot does not need to traverse the redirect at all. Use 302 only for genuinely temporary redirects (A/B tests, maintenance pages).
How It Works
We make an HTTP HEAD request, follow each Location header (without auto-following) and record the status code and target URL at each hop. Loops are detected when the same URL appears twice in the chain. Each hop is labelled as a real-world fix recommendation — collapse, change 302 to 301, or remove entirely.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Redirect chains longer than 3 hops (Google may stop following)
- Using 302 (temporary) for permanent URL changes
- Redirecting all 404s to homepage instead of the closest relevant page
- Old WWW -> non-WWW -> HTTPS chained instead of one-hop
- CDN-level redirect plus origin-level redirect both firing
Quick Checklist
- No redirect chain longer than 1 hop
- Permanent moves use 301, not 302
- No redirect loops
- Internal links updated to final destination URL
- Old domain redirects directly to corresponding new URL (not just homepage)
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301 (permanent) for any URL change you intend to keep. It passes nearly all link equity to the new URL. 302 (temporary) for genuine short-term redirects (A/B tests, maintenance, geographic redirects).
Google follows up to 10 hops then gives up. For SEO, aim for zero or one hop. Two hops is acceptable but should be cleaned up; three or more hops should be collapsed immediately.
Yes. 301 and 308 redirects pass effectively all PageRank to the new URL. 302 and 307 may pass less because they signal "temporary". Each hop in a chain bleeds a small amount of equity.
No. Redirect each 404 to the closest relevant page (a category, parent product, or related article). Mass-redirecting 404s to the homepage is a soft-404 pattern Google may penalise.
Run this tool against the URLs Search Console reports as "Page with redirect", and against any URL that has been moved more than once historically. Crawlers like Screaming Frog can scan an entire site at once.