HTTP Redirect Tester

Test and analyze HTTP redirects, trace redirect chains, and detect redirect loops. Optimize your SEO with proper redirect configuration.

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What are HTTP Redirects?

HTTP redirects are server-side instructions that automatically send users and search engines from one URL to another. When a browser requests a page that has been redirected, the server responds with a special status code (like 301 or 302) and the new destination URL.

How HTTP Redirects Work

When you visit a URL that's been redirected, this is what happens behind the scenes:

  1. Browser Request: Your browser sends an HTTP request to the original URL
  2. Server Response: The server responds with a 3xx status code (301, 302, 307, or 308) and a Location header containing the new URL
  3. Browser Action: Your browser automatically follows the redirect and requests the new URL
  4. Final Page Load: The server at the new URL responds with the requested content (200 OK)

This process happens in milliseconds and is usually invisible to users, but it has significant implications for SEO, link equity, and website performance.

Common Redirect Types

  • 301 Moved Permanently: Indicates the resource has permanently moved to a new URL. Passes 90-99% of link equity according to Google.
  • 302 Found (Temporary Redirect): Indicates a temporary move. Search engines may not pass full link equity.
  • 307 Temporary Redirect: Similar to 302 but explicitly preserves the HTTP method (POST remains POST).
  • 308 Permanent Redirect: Like 301 but preserves the HTTP method. Modern standard for permanent redirects.
  • Meta Refresh: HTML/JavaScript-based redirect (not recommended for SEO, as it's slower and may not pass link equity).

Why Redirects Are Necessary

Website owners implement redirects for several critical reasons:

  • Site Migrations: Moving content from HTTP to HTTPS, changing domain names, or migrating to new platforms
  • URL Structure Changes: Reorganizing website architecture or cleaning up legacy URLs
  • Content Consolidation: Merging duplicate or similar pages to improve SEO
  • Seasonal Content: Redirecting expired offers or event pages to relevant alternatives
  • Canonical URLs: Redirecting www to non-www (or vice versa) for consistency

Why HTTP Redirects Matter for SEO

Link Equity and Rankings

When you redirect a page, you're not just moving content—you're transferring SEO value. 301 redirects pass approximately 90-99% of link equity to the new URL, according to Google's John Mueller. This means backlinks, domain authority, and ranking signals follow the redirect.

However, redirect chains and loops can dilute this value. Each additional hop in a redirect chain potentially loses a small amount of link equity and adds latency. A URL that redirects multiple times (A → B → C → D) may pass significantly less SEO value than a direct redirect (A → D).

Crawl Budget Impact

Search engine crawlers have limited time and resources to crawl your site (your "crawl budget"). Redirects consume crawl budget in several ways:

  • Every redirect is an additional HTTP request that could have been used to discover new content
  • Redirect chains exponentially waste crawl budget as the crawler must follow each hop
  • Temporary redirects (302, 307) may cause crawlers to check the original URL repeatedly instead of updating their index

For large websites with thousands of pages, inefficient redirect management can prevent important pages from being crawled and indexed regularly.

Page Speed and User Experience

Each redirect adds measurable latency to page load times:

  • Single 301 redirect: Adds 50-200ms of latency (DNS lookup + HTTP request/response)
  • Redirect chain (3+ hops): Can add 300-1,000ms or more
  • Mobile networks: Higher latency makes redirects even more costly (can add 500ms+ per hop)

Google's Core Web Vitals initiative explicitly measures page speed, and excessive redirects negatively impact Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores. Users on slow connections may abandon pages that take too long to load due to redirect chains.

Consequences of Redirect Mistakes

Redirect Loops

What happens: URL A redirects to B, which redirects back to A. Browsers show "Too many redirects" errors.

Impact: Page becomes completely inaccessible. All SEO value lost. Crawler resources wasted.

Broken Redirect Chains

What happens: One redirect in a chain points to a 404 page or another redirect.

Impact: Link equity partially lost. Users see error pages. Increased bounce rates harm rankings.

Using 302 Instead of 301

What happens: Temporary redirect used for permanent content moves.

Impact: Search engines may not transfer full ranking signals. Original URL may remain in index months after migration.

Not Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS

What happens: Users access non-secure HTTP version when HTTPS is available.

Impact: Security warnings, duplicate content issues, split link equity between HTTP/HTTPS versions, potential ranking penalty.

Google's Official Stance

John Mueller (Google Search Advocate) has repeatedly emphasized:

  • "Keep redirect chains as short as possible, ideally one hop" (2020)
  • "301 and 308 redirects pass the same amount of PageRank as a normal link" (2021)
  • "We recommend keeping redirects in place for at least one year, ideally permanently" (2019)
  • "Redirect loops prevent us from crawling and indexing your content" (2022)

How This Redirect Tester Works

Our HTTP Redirect Tester follows the complete redirect chain from start to finish, capturing detailed information at each hop to help you identify issues and optimize your redirect strategy.

Technical Process

  1. Initial HTTP Request: Our server sends a GET request to your specified URL with standard browser headers
  2. Response Analysis: We capture the HTTP status code, response headers (including Location, Cache-Control, Server), and timing information
  3. Follow Redirects: If the response is a 3xx redirect, we automatically follow the Location header to the next URL
  4. Chain Tracking: We continue following redirects up to 10 hops, recording each step's URL, status code, headers, and latency
  5. Loop Detection: Our tool identifies redirect loops by detecting when a URL appears twice in the chain
  6. Final Destination: We highlight the final destination URL and total chain length

What We Check

Status Codes

Identifies redirect type (301, 302, 307, 308) and final status (200, 404, 500). Different status codes have different SEO implications.

Redirect Chains

Detects multi-hop redirects (A→B→C→D) that waste crawl budget and dilute link equity. Displays the complete chain with timing.

Redirect Loops

Identifies circular redirects that make pages inaccessible. Shows exactly where the loop occurs in the chain.

Response Time

Measures latency for each hop to quantify the performance impact. Helps identify slow redirects affecting Core Web Vitals.

HTTP vs HTTPS

Detects mixed-protocol redirects and identifies HTTP→HTTPS upgrades. Ensures secure connections are properly configured.

Final Destination

Shows where the redirect chain ultimately ends. Verifies the final URL returns a successful 200 OK response.

Why Use This Tool vs Manual Testing

Manual testing with browser developer tools or curl commands only shows one hop at a time. You'd need to manually follow each redirect, copy each Location header, and test again—a tedious, error-prone process.

Our Redirect Tester automates this entire process, displaying the complete chain in seconds with clear visualization, timing data, and automatic loop detection. This saves time, reduces errors, and provides insights that manual testing can't easily reveal.

Common Redirect Errors & How to Fix Them

Even experienced developers make redirect mistakes that harm SEO and user experience. Here are the most common errors and their solutions:

301 vs 302 Confusion (Wrong Redirect Type)

What it means: Using a 302 (temporary) redirect when content has permanently moved, or vice versa. This is the #1 most common redirect mistake.

How to fix: Use 301 for permanent moves (site migrations, deleted products redirecting to categories, URL structure changes). Use 302 only for genuinely temporary situations (A/B testing, seasonal campaigns, maintenance pages). Check your redirect configuration in .htaccess, Nginx config, or CDN settings and update the status code. Example .htaccess: Redirect 301 /old-page https://example.com/new-page

Redirect Chains (Multiple Hops)

What it means: URL A redirects to B, which redirects to C, which redirects to D. Each hop adds latency (50-200ms) and potentially loses link equity. Google recommends "one hop maximum."

How to fix: Update all redirects to point directly to the final destination. Run a crawl audit (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb) to find chains. Update your redirect rules to eliminate intermediate hops. Example: If old-domain.com → www.old-domain.com → new-domain.com, change to old-domain.com → new-domain.com directly. Test with this tool to verify chains are eliminated.

Redirect Loops (Circular Redirects)

What it means: URL A redirects to B, which redirects back to A (or A→B→C→A). Browsers show "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" and pages become completely inaccessible.

How to fix: Check your .htaccess or Nginx config for conflicting rules. Common causes: HTTP→HTTPS rule conflicts with www→non-www rules, or multiple redirect plugins on WordPress. Disable all redirect rules temporarily, then re-enable them one at a time to identify the conflict. Use RewriteCond directives to prevent loops: RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off (only redirect if not already HTTPS).

Meta Refresh Instead of Server-Side Redirects

What it means: Using HTML meta refresh (<meta http-equiv="refresh">) or JavaScript redirects instead of proper HTTP 301/302 redirects.

How to fix: Replace meta refresh and JS redirects with server-side 301 redirects. Meta refresh is slower (requires HTML parsing), doesn't pass full link equity, and confuses search engines about which URL to index. Update your server configuration (.htaccess, Nginx, Apache) to implement HTTP redirects. If you must use client-side redirects, set delay to 0 seconds and include rel="canonical" pointing to the target URL.

Broken Redirect Targets (404 Destinations)

What it means: A redirect points to a URL that returns 404 Not Found or another error. This wastes link equity and frustrates users who expected to find content.

How to fix: Audit all redirects to verify targets return 200 OK. Use tools like Screaming Frog to crawl your site and identify "redirect chains to 404" or "broken redirects." Update the redirect destination to a relevant, working page. For deleted product pages, redirect to the parent category or similar products, not the homepage (unless no relevant alternative exists).

Not Redirecting HTTP to HTTPS

What it means: After installing an SSL certificate, the HTTP version of your site is still accessible without redirecting to HTTPS. This creates duplicate content, splits link equity, and triggers security warnings.

How to fix: Implement a site-wide HTTP→HTTPS 301 redirect. For Apache/htaccess: RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [L,R=301]. For Nginx: return 301 https://$host$request_uri;. Test all pages with our redirect checker to ensure the redirect works consistently. Update internal links to use HTTPS directly to avoid unnecessary redirects.

Quick Fix Checklist

  • ✓ Use 301 for permanent moves, 302 only for temporary changes
  • ✓ Eliminate redirect chains—all redirects should go directly to final destination
  • ✓ Test for redirect loops with this tool before deploying configuration changes
  • ✓ Implement HTTP→HTTPS redirects site-wide immediately after SSL installation
  • ✓ Verify all redirect targets return 200 OK, not 404 or other errors
  • ✓ Keep redirects in place for at least 1 year (Google recommendation)
  • ✓ Monitor redirect chains quarterly with crawl audits to catch new issues

Real-World Redirect Scenarios

See how different websites use redirects effectively in common migration and optimization scenarios:

E-Commerce Site Migration (oldstore.com → newstore.com)

Scenario: An online retailer rebrands from "OldStore.com" to "NewStore.com" with 10,000+ product pages needing to preserve SEO rankings and 5 years of accumulated backlinks.

# Apache .htaccess on oldstore.com
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^oldstore\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.oldstore\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.newstore.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# Product URL structure mapping
Redirect 301 /products/blue-widget https://www.newstore.com/shop/blue-widget
Redirect 301 /category/electronics https://www.newstore.com/electronics

Why it works: 301 redirects preserve 90-99% of link equity from thousands of backlinks. Direct domain-level redirect ensures all pages (products, categories, blog posts) transfer to the new domain. URL structure mapping maintains relevance (old product pages → new product pages, not homepage). Redirects should remain in place permanently to catch late-linking sources and long-tail referral traffic.

HTTP to HTTPS Migration

Scenario: A business blog installs an SSL certificate and needs to redirect all HTTP traffic to HTTPS to avoid duplicate content penalties and security warnings.

# Apache .htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

# Nginx
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name example.com www.example.com;
  return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

Why it works: Site-wide 301 redirect ensures all HTTP URLs automatically upgrade to HTTPS. The RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off prevents redirect loops by only redirecting non-HTTPS requests. This maintains SEO rankings during SSL migration, consolidates link equity to the HTTPS version, and prevents mixed content warnings. Update internal links to HTTPS to avoid unnecessary redirects on future page loads.

URL Structure Cleanup (Removing /index.php/)

Scenario: A WordPress site has legacy URLs with /index.php/ in the path. The site owner wants to clean URLs for better SEO and user experience.

# WordPress .htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^GET.*index\.php [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)index\.php(.*)$ /$1$2 [R=301,L]

# Before: example.com/index.php/blog/post-title
# After: example.com/blog/post-title

Why it works: Removes ugly /index.php/ from URLs while preserving the rest of the URL structure. 301 redirects transfer SEO value from old URLs to cleaned versions. Using RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} prevents redirect loops by only matching the actual request string, not rewritten URLs. Improves URL aesthetics for social sharing and user trust while consolidating duplicate URL variations into canonical versions.

WWW to Non-WWW Canonicalization

Scenario: A website is accessible at both www.example.com and example.com, causing duplicate content issues. Owner chooses non-WWW as canonical version.

# Apache .htaccess - Redirect WWW to non-WWW
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

# Nginx - Redirect WWW to non-WWW
server {
  listen 443 ssl;
  server_name www.example.com;
  return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
}

Why it works: Consolidates all link equity and traffic to a single canonical version (non-WWW in this case). Prevents duplicate content penalties from search engines indexing both versions. 301 redirect ensures backlinks to www.example.com automatically transfer authority to example.com. Choose either WWW or non-WWW and stick with it consistently—the choice itself matters less than consistency. Update all internal links and canonical tags to match your chosen version.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about HTTP redirects and testing redirect chains

301 and 302 redirects serve fundamentally different purposes, with major implications for SEO and how search engines handle your content:

301 Moved Permanently: Indicates the resource has permanently moved to a new location. Search engines transfer approximately 90-99% of link equity (ranking signals, backlinks, authority) from the old URL to the new URL. Google updates its index to show the new URL in search results, typically within days to weeks. Use 301 for site migrations, deleted products, URL structure changes, or any scenario where content has moved forever.

302 Found (Temporary Redirect): Indicates a temporary move—the resource will return to its original URL eventually. Search engines may not transfer full link equity because they expect the original URL to be restored. Google continues to index the original URL rather than the destination. Use 302 for A/B testing, seasonal campaigns, maintenance pages, or temporary content moves that will revert.

SEO Impact: The wrong redirect type is a critical error. Using 302 for permanent moves means you lose months of SEO work while Google keeps indexing the old URL. Using 301 for temporary moves prevents you from restoring the original URL's rankings when you switch back. When in doubt, use 301—permanent moves are far more common than genuinely temporary ones.

Modern Standards: HTTP/1.1 also defines 307 (Temporary Redirect) and 308 (Permanent Redirect), which work like 302/301 but explicitly preserve the HTTP request method (POST remains POST, not converted to GET). Use 308 for permanent redirects when request method preservation matters.

Redirect chains harm SEO in three measurable ways: link equity dilution, crawl budget waste, and page speed degradation.

Link Equity Dilution: While Google's John Mueller states that "301 redirects pass the same PageRank as a normal link" (2021), redirect chains potentially lose small amounts of link equity at each hop. A chain like A→B→C→D means the final page (D) receives less authority than if A redirected directly to D. The exact percentage loss per hop is undisclosed, but anecdotal evidence suggests 10-15% cumulative loss across chains longer than 3 hops.

Crawl Budget Impact: Each redirect hop consumes crawl budget—the number of pages Google crawls during a visit. For a 3-hop chain, Googlebot must make 4 HTTP requests (initial + 3 redirects) to reach the final content, versus 2 requests for a direct redirect. On large sites (10,000+ pages), this means hundreds of important pages may not be crawled because resources are wasted following chains.

Page Speed Degradation: Each redirect adds 50-200ms of latency (DNS lookup, TCP handshake, HTTP request/response). A 3-hop chain adds 150-600ms or more, especially on mobile networks. Google's Core Web Vitals explicitly penalize slow-loading pages, and redirect chains directly harm your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score. Users on slow connections may abandon pages that take too long to load due to excessive redirects.

Best Practice: Run quarterly redirect audits using tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to identify chains. Update all redirects to point directly to the final destination. Google recommends "keep redirect chains as short as possible, ideally one hop maximum" (John Mueller, 2020).

A redirect loop occurs when URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects back to URL A (or A→B→C→A), creating an infinite cycle. Browsers detect this after 5-10 redirects and show "ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS" or "This page isn't working" errors. The page becomes completely inaccessible, and all SEO value is lost.

Common Causes:

  • Conflicting Redirect Rules: Multiple .htaccess files or Nginx config blocks with overlapping rules (e.g., HTTP→HTTPS rule conflicts with www→non-www rule)
  • WordPress Plugin Conflicts: Multiple redirect plugins or SEO plugins all trying to handle HTTPS/www redirects simultaneously
  • CloudFlare SSL Settings: CloudFlare set to "Flexible SSL" while server redirects HTTP→HTTPS creates a loop (CloudFlare connects to server via HTTP, server redirects to HTTPS, CloudFlare receives redirect and requests HTTP again)
  • Incorrect RewriteCond: Missing conditions in .htaccess that should prevent re-applying rules to already-redirected requests

How to Fix:

  1. Disable All Redirects Temporarily: Rename .htaccess to .htaccess.bak or comment out all rewrite rules to regain access to your site
  2. Test Each Rule Individually: Re-enable redirect rules one at a time, testing after each addition to identify which rule causes the loop
  3. Add Conditions to Prevent Loops: Use RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off to only redirect non-HTTPS requests, or RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\. to only redirect www URLs
  4. Fix CloudFlare SSL: Change CloudFlare SSL setting from "Flexible" to "Full" or "Full (Strict)" to maintain HTTPS through the entire connection
  5. Consolidate Redirect Logic: Remove redundant rules. Use a single, well-structured redirect block instead of multiple overlapping rules

Prevention: Always test redirect configuration changes in a staging environment before deploying to production. Use this redirect checker tool to verify chains don't loop before going live.

The choice between www and non-www (naked domain) doesn't directly impact SEO rankings—consistency matters more than the choice itself. However, there are technical considerations that may influence your decision:

Advantages of Non-WWW (example.com):

  • Shorter URLs: Cleaner appearance, easier to remember, saves 4 characters in social media posts
  • Modern Preference: Most new websites and tech companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter) use non-www
  • Branding: Looks more modern and minimalist, matches how people verbally say domain names

Advantages of WWW (www.example.com):

  • DNS Flexibility: Allows use of CNAME records for CDN configuration (naked domains can only use A records, limiting CDN options)
  • Cookie Scope Control: Prevents cookies set on www.example.com from being sent to subdomains like api.example.com or static.example.com, reducing bandwidth
  • Technical Separation: Easier to host website and email on different servers (naked domains require careful MX record management)

How to Choose:

  1. Check Current Backlinks: Use tools like Ahrefs or Moz to see which version has more inbound links. Choose the version with more existing links to minimize redirect overhead.
  2. Consider Technical Needs: If using a CDN that requires CNAME records, choose www. If using a modern CDN with ALIAS/ANAME support, either works.
  3. Match Existing Brand: If your marketing materials, business cards, and promotional content already use one version consistently, stick with it.
  4. Pick One and Commit: The worst scenario is switching back and forth. Choose one version, implement 301 redirects from the other, update all internal links, and set proper canonical tags.

Implementation: Once you decide, redirect the non-preferred version to your canonical version using 301 redirects. Update all internal links to use the canonical version directly. Set canonical tags in HTML to reinforce your preferred version to search engines.

Google's Official Recommendation: At least one year, ideally permanently. John Mueller (Google Search Advocate) has stated multiple times that redirects should remain in place "at least a year, ideally forever" to ensure complete link equity transfer and catch late-linking sources.

Why Minimum One Year:

  • Search Engine Recrawl Cycles: Google may take months to fully recrawl and update all references to your old URLs in their index. Low-priority pages may be crawled infrequently.
  • Backlink Discovery: New backlinks to your old URLs appear continuously as older blog posts, forums, and directories link to your historical content. These links remain valuable for years.
  • Cached Links: Third-party websites, email archives, PDF documents, and social media posts contain links to your old URLs that won't be updated. These generate ongoing traffic.
  • Direct Traffic: Users with bookmarks, browser history, or saved links will continue visiting old URLs indefinitely.

Cost of Removing Redirects Too Soon: If you remove a 301 redirect before search engines have fully transferred authority, the old URL may start returning 404 errors. This means:

  • All backlinks to the old URL become worthless (404s pass zero link equity)
  • Users clicking old links see error pages (high bounce rate, poor user experience)
  • You lose any residual traffic from bookmarks, cached links, and old referrals
  • Search engines may drop the new URL's rankings if they detect the "permanent" redirect was actually temporary

Best Practice: Keep redirects permanently unless you have a compelling reason to remove them. Server resources consumed by redirects are minimal (negligible CPU/memory impact even with thousands of redirect rules). The SEO protection and user experience benefits far outweigh any theoretical performance concerns. After major migrations, audit redirect usage after 1 year to identify truly abandoned URLs receiving zero traffic, but err on the side of keeping redirects longer rather than removing them prematurely.

The number of redirect rules in your configuration does not slow down your website—what matters is redirect chains (multiple hops) that users actually encounter. You can have 10,000 redirect rules with zero performance impact if each rule points directly to its final destination.

Redirect Rule Count (No Performance Impact):

  • Apache/Nginx: Modern web servers process redirect rules extremely efficiently using hash tables and regex engines. Even thousands of rules add only microseconds to request processing.
  • Memory Usage: Redirect rules are loaded into memory at server startup and remain cached. A configuration with 5,000 redirects typically uses less than 1 MB of RAM.
  • Rule Evaluation: Servers evaluate rules sequentially until finding a match, then stop. Optimize by placing frequently-matched rules earlier in your configuration.

Redirect Chains (Significant Performance Impact):

  • Single Hop (A→B): Adds 50-200ms latency (one extra HTTP request/response cycle). Acceptable performance impact for most use cases.
  • Two Hops (A→B→C): Adds 100-400ms. Noticeable on slower connections, may impact Core Web Vitals scores.
  • Three+ Hops (A→B→C→D...): Adds 150-600ms+. Severely impacts page load speed, especially on mobile networks. Can double or triple initial page load time. Harms SEO rankings through poor LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) scores.

Real-World Performance Example: An e-commerce site with 50,000 product pages and 15,000 redirect rules (from historical URL changes) experiences zero performance degradation from the rule count itself. However, if even 100 of those redirects form chains (old-url → temp-url → final-url), those 100 pages load 150-400ms slower than pages with direct redirects.

Best Practices:

  • Keep unlimited redirect rules with no performance concern—they're essentially free
  • Eliminate all redirect chains so every redirect is a single hop to the final destination
  • Run quarterly audits to detect chains that form over time as URLs evolve
  • Update redirects to point to current URLs when destinations change, don't create chain-on-chain redirects
  • Use this redirect tester tool to verify page load performance before and after redirect changes

Testing redirect chains requires tools that automatically follow HTTP redirects and display the complete chain. Here are the best options for different use cases:

Free Online Tools (Best for Quick Testing):

  • This HTTP Redirect Tester (Above): Enter any URL to see the complete redirect chain, status codes, timing, and detect loops. Perfect for spot-checking individual pages or troubleshooting specific redirect issues. No installation required.
  • Browser Developer Tools: Open Chrome DevTools (F12) → Network tab → Disable "Preserve log" → Refresh page. Shows all HTTP requests including redirects, headers, and timing. Good for understanding redirect behavior but requires manual analysis.

Command-Line Tools (For Developers):

  • cURL: curl -I -L -s -o /dev/null -w "Status: %{http_code}\nFinal URL: %{url_effective}\n" https://example.com — Shows final status and destination. Add -v flag for verbose output showing each redirect hop.
  • wget: wget --spider --max-redirect=10 -S https://example.com 2>&1 | grep "HTTP/" — Displays all redirect hops with status codes.

Site-Wide Crawling Tools (Best for Comprehensive Audits):

  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Free up to 500 URLs, paid for larger sites. Crawls entire website and identifies all redirects, chains, loops, and broken redirect targets. Exports reports for analysis. Industry standard for technical SEO.
  • Sitebulb: Visual website crawler with excellent redirect chain detection and reporting. Color-coded diagrams show redirect flows. Premium tool (~$35/month) with superior UX.
  • Ahrefs Site Audit: Part of Ahrefs SEO platform (~$99+/month). Identifies redirect chains, loops, and broken redirects across your entire domain. Integrates with backlink data to show which redirects receive traffic.

Continuous Monitoring Tools:

  • Google Search Console: Free tool from Google showing crawl errors including redirect chains and loops. Check Coverage report → Excluded tab → "Page with redirect" for issues. Updates weekly.
  • Uptime Monitoring Services: Tools like Pingdom or UptimeRobot can be configured to follow redirects and alert you if chains or loops are detected. Good for catching configuration mistakes immediately after deployment.

Recommended Workflow:

  1. Before Deployment: Test critical redirects with this online tool or cURL to verify chains are eliminated
  2. After Major Changes: Run full-site crawl with Screaming Frog to identify any unintended redirect chains
  3. Quarterly Audits: Re-crawl site with Sitebulb or Screaming Frog to catch chains that form over time as URLs evolve
  4. Ongoing Monitoring: Use Google Search Console to catch crawl errors and redirect issues Google discovers