Redirect Chain Checker
Trace every HTTP redirect from any URL to its final destination
What does this redirect checker analyse?
Full redirect chain
Follows every hop from your starting URL to the final destination, showing each intermediate URL and its HTTP status code.
Loop detection
Automatically detects redirect loops where a URL redirects back to itself or a previously visited URL, causing an infinite cycle.
Redirect type
Identifies whether each redirect is 301 (permanent), 302 (temporary), 307, or 308 — important for passing link equity in SEO.
Hop count
Counts the total number of redirects. Google recommends a maximum of 1 hop. More than 3 hops can slow down crawling and hurt rankings.
Final destination URL
Shows the exact final URL your visitors land on — useful for verifying canonical URLs and ensuring your redirects end up in the right place.
Real-time tracing
Each hop is fetched live from the server with no caching — you always see the current redirect behaviour, not a stale snapshot.
Frequently asked questions
Why do redirects matter for SEO?
Every redirect adds a round-trip to the server, slowing page load and wasting crawl budget. Worse, each hop in a redirect chain dilutes link equity (PageRank) — a 301 redirect passes roughly 99% of link value, but a chain of three passes less. Google's John Mueller recommends pointing links and sitemaps directly to the canonical URL and avoiding chains longer than one hop. Temporary (302/307) redirects pass no link equity at all.
What is a redirect loop?
A redirect loop (also called a circular redirect) happens when URL A redirects to URL B, and URL B redirects back to URL A — or through a longer chain that eventually returns to a URL already visited. Browsers detect this and show a "Too many redirects" error. This is usually caused by misconfigured server rules, conflicting CDN or proxy settings, or incorrect HTTP/HTTPS redirect logic. Use this tool to detect and diagnose loops before they affect real users.
301 vs 302 redirect — what's the difference?
A 301 redirect tells search engines the move is permanent — the old URL is gone for good. Search engines transfer link equity to the new URL and eventually drop the old one from the index. A 302 redirect is temporary — the old URL is expected to return, so search engines keep it in the index and do not transfer link equity. Use 301 for permanent moves (domain changes, URL restructures) and 302 only when the redirect is genuinely short-term. Similarly, 308 is the permanent version of 307 (both preserve the HTTP method on redirect).
Need ongoing redirect monitoring?
SiteBrief checks your pages daily and alerts you the moment a redirect appears or breaks. Monitor uptime, SSL, performance, and redirects — all in one dashboard.
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