Free Technical SEO utility
Redirect chain checker
Paste up to 20 URLs. For each one we follow the HTTP redirects hop by hop and show the status code, Location header and response time of every hop, then flag loops, chains, broken endpoints and protocol or trailing-slash hops. Export the results as CSV.
Why redirect chains matter
Google's documentation says its crawlers follow up to 10 redirect hops by default, that specific products can differ (Google Inspection Tools don't follow redirects), and that URLs returning 4xx aren't indexed. Its crawl budget guide advises: "Avoid long redirect chains, which have a negative effect on crawling." Most sites don't have a crawl budget problem, but every extra hop is still a request for crawlers and a delay for visitors, and chains tend to pile up after migrations and HTTPS or www changes.
What the checker flags
- Loops: a URL that redirects back to one already in the chain.
- Chains: two or more redirects. Point the first URL, and your internal links, straight at the final URL. We stop after 10 redirects, matching Google's default.
- Broken endpoints: chains that end in a 4xx or 5xx status.
- Temporary redirects (302, 303, 307). Google's redirects documentation says permanent redirects (301, 308) are a signal that the target should be canonical, while temporary ones aren't, and recommends a permanent server-side redirect when you want the new URL shown in search results.
- Hop types: http→https, https→http downgrades, host changes (such as adding www), trailing-slash and path-case hops. These are often fine on their own but stack up into chains, for example http → https → www → trailing slash.
Limits
- Only HTTP redirects (3xx +
Location) are followed. Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects, which Google also handles, aren't detected. - We send HEAD first and fall back to GET when HEAD errors or returns 4xx/5xx; some servers still answer HEAD and GET differently, or treat bots differently from browsers.
- Public hosts only (private and reserved IPs are blocked on every hop), 5 s per request, URLs sent in batches of 5 with a capped number of requests per batch (a URL that hits the cap is marked so you can re-check it), and a per-visitor rate limit.