A 301 redirect indicates a permanent move—the original URL has been permanently replaced by a new URL and should never be used again. Search engines transfer link equity and authority from the old URL to the new URL, update their index to show the new URL, and stop crawling the old URL. A 302 redirect indicates a temporary move—the original URL will return in the future. Search engines keep the original URL in their index, don't transfer full link equity, and continue checking the old URL periodically.

Use 301 for: permanent URL changes, domain migrations, consolidating duplicate content, retired pages redirecting to replacements, HTTPS migrations, and URL structure changes. Use 302 for: A/B testing (showing different URLs to different users temporarily), temporary maintenance pages, seasonal redirects that will revert, geolocation redirects (users in different regions seeing different URLs), or any situation where the original URL will be restored. The most common mistake is using 302 for permanent changes, preventing proper SEO benefit transfer. If in doubt, use 301—permanent redirects are appropriate for the vast majority of use cases. Note: 307 and 308 are newer versions of 302 and 301 with stricter rules about preserving request methods, useful for technical scenarios but 301/302 remain standard for most web redirects.

Best practice is zero or one redirect maximum. The ideal scenario is no redirects—direct links to final URLs. When redirects are necessary (URL migrations, canonicalization), limit to one hop: original URL → final URL. Two hops are acceptable in some scenarios but should be avoided when possible. Three or more hops indicate a problem that needs fixing. Google's John Mueller has stated that Googlebot follows up to 5 redirect hops but doesn't recommend relying on this—each hop wastes crawl budget and adds latency.

Practical impact by chain length: 0 redirects = optimal (0ms redirect overhead), 1 redirect = acceptable (100-150ms added latency), 2 redirects = suboptimal but usually not breaking (200-300ms overhead), 3+ redirects = problematic (400+ ms overhead, SEO concerns, mobile UX degradation), 5+ redirects = critical issue (potential indexing failure, severe performance impact). Every site has some redirects—the goal isn't eliminating all redirects but minimizing unnecessary chains. After migrations or major changes, audit your site with a Redirect Chain Checker and consolidate any chains longer than 1 hop by updating redirects to point directly to final destinations.

Fixing redirect chains can improve rankings indirectly through multiple mechanisms, though they're not a direct ranking factor. First, faster page load times from eliminating redirect latency improve user experience signals—lower bounce rates and better engagement can positively influence rankings. Second, improved crawl efficiency means Googlebot can discover and index more of your content with the same crawl budget. Third, shorter redirect paths preserve more link equity—each hop potentially loses 5-10% of passed authority according to some SEO testing.

The ranking impact varies by severity of the original issue. Sites with extensive 4-5 hop chains or redirect loops affecting many pages may see significant ranking recovery after fixes—sometimes 20-40% traffic increases as pages become properly indexed and perform better. Sites with occasional 2-hop chains may see marginal improvements focused on user experience metrics. Don't expect redirect chain fixes alone to catapult rankings dramatically, but combined with other optimizations, they contribute to overall site health. The more significant benefit is often traffic recovery—even if rankings stay the same, faster load times increase CTR and reduce bounces, converting rankings into more actual visitors and conversions. Treat redirect optimization as essential site hygiene that enables your SEO efforts to succeed rather than as a silver-bullet ranking booster.

For large-scale redirect chain fixes, use systematic tools and processes rather than manual page-by-page updates. Start by crawling your entire site with tools like Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or enterprise SEO platforms that identify all redirect chains. Export a list of URLs with chains, including the complete redirect path for each. Prioritize fixes by impact: address redirect loops immediately (total breakage), then long chains on high-traffic pages, then comprehensive cleanup of all chains.

Implementation approach: For server-level redirects (.htaccess, nginx.conf, etc.), update redirect rules to point directly to final destinations—if A→B→C→D, change rules so A→D and B→D. Use regex patterns and bulk find-replace to update multiple rules efficiently. For CMS-based redirects, use redirect manager plugins or database queries to bulk-update redirect targets. Test changes on staging environment first—incorrectly updated redirects can break your entire site. Deploy changes during low-traffic periods and monitor closely. After deployment, re-crawl to verify chains are resolved. For truly massive sites (100k+ pages), consider phased rollout: fix critical pages first, then progressively work through remaining inventory over weeks/months. Automate monitoring with services that alert when new redirect chains appear, preventing future accumulation. Budget 40-80 hours of technical SEO work for comprehensive redirect chain cleanup on large enterprise sites.

Keep redirects indefinitely in most cases, especially for pages that had significant traffic, backlinks, or authority. The storage and performance cost of maintaining redirects is negligible compared to the risk of breaking inbound links. Old backlinks from authoritative sites remain valuable for years—some industry research shows links maintaining value for 5-10+ years. Removing redirects breaks those links, losing their SEO value and potentially frustrating users trying to access bookmarked or linked content.

Situations where removal might be considered: redirects for pages that never had external links and receive zero traffic (verify with analytics covering 12+ months), redirects creating technical conflicts or loops that can't be resolved while maintaining the redirect, temporary redirects (302/307) that have served their purpose and original URLs should be restored, or extremely old redirects (10+ years) from defunct domains that no longer belong to you. Before removing any redirect, check: backlink profiles to ensure no valuable links target the old URL, analytics to confirm zero traffic to the old URL in the past year, and site-wide for any internal links still pointing to the old URL (update them first). Best practice: Keep a redirect inventory spreadsheet documenting when redirects were created and why, making informed decisions possible years later. For most businesses, the safe default is permanent retention—the marginal cost is near-zero and the potential SEO value preservation is significant.

Yes, browsers typically limit redirects to 20 hops to prevent infinite loops and DoS attacks. While rare, extremely long redirect chains can hit this limit even without actual loops. However, long chains usually cause performance problems long before reaching browser limits—users abandon pages that take 5+ seconds to load, which can happen with just 8-10 redirect hops on slower connections.

More commonly, "too many redirects" errors result from: actual loops (A→B→A), conditional redirects creating loops under specific circumstances (mobile detection redirecting to mobile URL which redirects back to desktop URL), cookie or session-based redirects that create loops, conflicting redirect rules at different infrastructure layers (CDN, load balancer, web server, application all adding redirects), or protocol/www redirects configured incorrectly creating cycles (http→https→http or www→non-www→www). To debug, use a Redirect Chain Checker which will identify the exact loop or break point, test in incognito mode to eliminate cookie issues, disable CDN temporarily to isolate infrastructure layers, check all redirect configuration points (.htaccess, nginx.conf, application code, CMS plugins, CDN rules), and test all URL variations (http/https, www/non-www combinations). The error message typically indicates the URL where the loop occurs, providing a starting point for investigation.