Redirect chain checker

A silent follow only shows the last URL. This checker shows the path: 301 → 302 → 200. Long chains waste crawl budget and drop referrers. A hop to a private or metadata address is refused and is not fetched.

Uses the public POST /api/audit. After the free daily check, continue in the workspace.

What we measure

Up to ten hops. Relative Location is resolved against the current hop. javascript: and non-http(s) targets abort the chain. A loop is an error, not a long success.

The report lists status per hop. We never store a blocked Location (nothing like 169.254 ends up in the JSON). The final document, if we got one, is the same HTML the rest of the audit uses.

How to flatten it

One 301 from the old address to the canonical. Do not stack http→https, www→apex and trailing-slash as three separate hops if you can collapse them.

This is not the HTTP status tool. That one tells you the final code. This one tells you how expensive it was to get there.

Why three hops is where the warning starts

Each hop is a full request: a DNS lookup if the host changes, a TLS handshake, a round trip, then the next Location. Crawlers follow a limited number of hops per URL and give up on long chains; browsers show a blank tab until the last one answers. The checker follows up to ten hops and flags a chain at three or more, because two is what a normal migration produces (http to https, then the moved page) and three usually means nobody looked.

It also refuses to follow a Location that points at a private or metadata address and records that as an error rather than fetching it. A loop — a hop that returns to an address already visited — is reported as an error, not as a long chain.

Common mistakes

Stacking rules that each fix one thing: http → https, then www → apex, then trailing slash, then the moved page, four hops for a URL that could jump straight to the destination. Redirecting with 302 during a migration and forgetting to change it to 301. Leaving internal links pointing at the old address, so every visitor and every crawl pays the chain again.

A chain the checker flags, and the same move done in one hop

As found

http://example.com/old-page   → 301 https://example.com/old-page
https://example.com/old-page  → 301 https://www.example.com/old-page
https://www.example.com/old-page → 302 https://www.example.com/new-page
<!-- 3 hops → redirect_chain_long (warn); the last one is still temporary -->

Fixed

http://example.com/old-page → 301 https://www.example.com/new-page
<!-- one permanent hop to the final address; https and www resolved in the same rule -->

The audit of example.com on 5 September 2026 recorded 0 hops: the URL answers 200 at its own address. The snippets above use the same host to show the shape of a chain the way the checker prints it, hop by hop.

Questions

Do redirects lose ranking signals?

A single permanent redirect passes them. The loss comes from chains that crawlers stop following, from temporary redirects that never consolidate, and from links that keep pointing at the old address.

301 or 308?

Both are permanent. 308 also guarantees the method and body are kept, which matters for POST; for page moves 301 is the common choice and search engines treat them the same.

Why is my redirect to the home page a problem?

Because the old page had a topic and the home page has another. The engine treats a mass redirect to the home as a soft 404 and the old rankings are not transferred.

See the full audit in your workspace

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