Redirect checker
Follow the full redirect chain and see every hop.
Free and no signup. This one fetches the URL from our server; nothing about it is stored.
This one fetches the page from our server, so unlike the rest of these tools the URL does leave your browser. Nothing about it is stored.
About this tool
Redirect chains accumulate quietly. http to https, then non-www to www, then an old path to a new one — each added by a different person at a different time, and together they cost every visitor three round trips before a byte of your page arrives.
- Each hop is shown with its status. A 302 in a permanent move is flagged, because search engines keep the old URL indexed when they see one.
- Chains cost more than they look. Every hop is a DNS lookup, a connection and a round trip, repeated for every visitor and every crawl.
- The fix is to point the first URL at the last one directly rather than removing an intermediate step.
- The chain is followed manually, up to six hops, and every hop is validated before it is fetched.
Questions
- How many redirects are too many?
- One is normal and two is tolerable. Beyond that you are spending real time on every visit, and Google has said it stops following after about five.
- What is the difference between 301 and 302?
- 301 is permanent and passes ranking signals to the new URL. 302 is temporary, so the old URL stays indexed — which is why a 302 left on a permanent move quietly costs you.
- Do redirects slow down a site?
- Yes. Each hop is a full round trip before any content arrives, and it is paid by every visitor on every uncached request.