Free · No signup

Redirect Chain Checker

Redirect chains are silent killers: every extra hop adds 100–500ms, dilutes link equity, and confuses crawlers. Our checker follows the chain from start to finish, showing every status code, response time, and the type of redirect (301, 302, 307, meta refresh, JS). Catches loops, dead ends, and 404s mid-chain.

URL to check

We follow up to 15 hops and stop at the first 2xx/4xx/5xx response.

How it works

A short, focused workflow — input, run, read the result.

Paste a URL
Enter the starting URL. The server-side fetcher follows every redirect hop, up to 15.
Review each hop
Each row shows URL, status code, redirect type, and response time. Issues are flagged in red.
Eliminate the chain
If the final URL should be served directly, update your server config (htaccess, nginx, CDN) to skip intermediate hops.

What is a redirect chain, and why does one extra hop cost you rankings?

A redirect chain is two or more consecutive HTTP redirects between the URL a user requests and the final destination. A single extra hop costs 50 to 300ms of TTFB, dilutes PageRank transfer by 5 to 10%, and increases the chance that one hop fails. Google has stated publicly: aim for 1 redirect, max 2, absolutely avoid 3+.

Redirects are a fact of life on every site that has ever migrated, rebranded, or merged a URL path. The problem is not the first redirect. It is the chain. A page reachable at A, redirected to B, redirected to C, redirected to D is a 3-hop chain. The user pays the latency for 3 round trips. The crawler hits the same 3 round trips. The PageRank transfer compounds the loss at each hop. The chain also creates a new failure surface: if B goes down, the whole chain breaks.Chains usually come from migrations layered on migrations, or from a CMS that prepends a redirect instead of replacing the old one. The classic example: HTTPS migration added first (http to https), then a www migration (non-www to www), then a URL rewrite to drop a trailing slash. Every old URL now has a 3-hop chain. The fix is to point the original URL directly at the final destination, skipping the intermediates. The chain becomes a single hop.Our checker follows the chain from start to finish, up to 15 hops, showing every status code, response time, and redirect type (301, 302, 307, meta refresh). Catches loops, dead ends, 404s mid-chain, and unnecessary 302s. Free, no signup.

50-300ms

TTFB cost per extra redirect hop

5-10%

Link equity lost per intermediate hop

Max hops the checker will follow per URL

What this redirect chain checker finds

Every kind of redirect issue, from wasted hops to infinite loops, traced end to end.

301 permanent redirect — the right answer for permanent moves. Passes 90 to 99% of link equity to the destination. The default for SEO-relevant redirects.
302 temporary redirect — signals a temporary move. Google has said it treats 302s like 301s in practice, but leaving one in place indefinitely is a wasted SEO signal.
307 temporary redirect — preserves the HTTP method. Used for temporary moves where the method must not change. Often misconfigured where 302 was the right answer.
Meta refresh redirect — client-side redirect via <meta http-equiv='refresh'>. Slow, deprecated, and ignored by many crawlers. Usually a sign of a legacy CMS.
Redirect loop detection — A to B to A is a loop. The checker stops at 15 hops but explicitly flags the loop with the URLs that are repeating.
404 mid-chain — a hop in the chain returns 404. The user sees an error page after a 200ms delay. Common on sites with incomplete migration rewrites.
Cross-domain redirect — a hop that changes the domain. Legitimate during migrations, often a sign of an unfinished cutover or a CDN misconfiguration.
Per-hop response time — each hop shows its latency. A 800ms hop in a 4-hop chain means the user is waiting 3 seconds before the page even starts loading.

Who uses this redirect chain checker

Anyone who has ever migrated, rebranded, or fixed a URL structure and wants to confirm the chain is actually a single hop.

Technical SEOs

You migrated 2000 URLs last month and want to confirm none of them have a 3+ hop chain left over from layered rewrites.

Audit the top 500 URLs by traffic, find the 20 to 30 with chains, ship a redirect map that points each old URL directly at the final destination.

Developers

You're migrating a site from one CMS to another and writing the rewrite rules in nginx or htaccess.

Test each rewrite rule with the checker, confirm each one is a single hop, and ship the config without the classic 2-hop chain bug.

In-house SEOs

Your site has 18 months of accumulated redirects and the average URL goes through 2.4 hops to reach a live page.

Quantify the chain problem, build a business case to flatten the redirects, and reduce average hops to 1 across the top 1000 URLs.

Agencies

You're auditing a 5000-page client site and a redirect chain audit is one of the deliverables.

Generate a per-URL chain report, prioritize the longest chains, and ship a redirect consolidation plan with measurable TTFB improvements.

Ecommerce managers

You have 800 discontinued product pages that all 301 to a category page, but some chain through an old /sale/ path first.

Find the chained 301s, rewrite them to point directly at the category, and recover the 200ms TTFB the chain was costing each visit.

Site reliability engineers

A spike in 404s is hitting your error budget and you suspect a misconfigured rewrite rule is creating a loop.

Paste the suspect URL into the checker, confirm the loop, identify the conflicting rule, and ship the fix to stop the 404 storm.

Related glossary terms

Want a deeper dive? These glossary entries explain the concepts behind this tool.

Frequently Asked
Questions

Check HTTP redirect chains for performance and SEO — from 301s to 307s, including cycles and dead ends.

A redirect chain is two or more consecutive HTTP redirects between the URL a user/crawler requests and the final destination. A→B→C→D is a 3-hop chain. Each hop adds latency, dilutes PageRank transfer, and increases the chance of one hop failing.

Google's John Mueller has said 'you should aim for 1 redirect, max 2, and absolutely avoid 3+.' In practice, every additional hop costs 50–300ms of TTFB and can lose 5–10% of link equity.

Yes. 301 (permanent) passes ~90-99% of link equity to the destination. 302 (temporary) passes 0% historically, though Google has said 302s are treated like 301s in practice. The bigger issue: leaving a 302 in place indefinitely is a wasted SEO signal. Make it 301 if the move is permanent.

Yes, the checker stops at 15 hops but will explicitly flag a detected loop (A→B→A→B) with a 'redirect loop' warning. Loops are usually caused by misconfigured rewrite rules.

The checker only follows HTTP-level redirects (server responses and meta refresh). JavaScript-based redirects (window.location, history.pushState) are invisible to the HTTP fetcher and not detected. To check JS redirects, use a real browser tool.

More free tools

Free, no signup required. Built by the team behind SERPView.

Google SERP Simulator Tool

Simulate exactly how your page appears in Google search results. Live SERP preview with title, URL, and description, plus character and pixel-width warnings before you publish.

Try it free

Meta Description Generator

Generate 5 AI meta description variants from your page title. See the live SERP preview and copy the winner to your CMS.