What Is a 301 Redirect? How to Check Redirects (Free Tool)

What is a 301 redirect?

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect: it tells browsers and search engines that a URL has moved permanently to a new address. When a server responds with a 301, the client (browser or crawler) is automatically sent to the destination URL.

The four redirect status codes you'll meet:

For SEO purposes the practical split is simple: use 301/308 when a URL is gone for good, use 302/307 for short-term detours.

Why 301 redirects matter for SEO

When Google crawls a URL and receives a 301, it transfers the ranking signals (link equity, relevance signals) from the old URL to the new one. This matters in three situations:

1. Site migrations — moving from example.com to example.org? Every old URL should 301 to its new counterpart.
2. HTTP → HTTPS — after enabling SSL, all http:// URLs should permanently redirect to their https:// versions. Google explicitly treats this as a ranking signal.
3. URL restructuring — when you clean up a URL structure (/post.php?id=5 → /blog/5-title), the old URLs must 301 to the new ones so you don't lose rankings.

A 404 instead of a 301 means Google drops the old page's signals and users land on an error page — a double loss.

Redirect chains and loops

Two redirect problems to watch for:

• Redirect chains — A → B → C. Every hop costs latency for users and crawl budget for Google. The target should always be the final URL, never an intermediate one.
• Redirect loops — A → B → A. Browsers give up after a fixed number of hops and show an error page. Google stops following after roughly 5 hops.

The fix is the same for both: make every old URL point directly to its final destination.

How to check whether a URL redirects correctly

Use the free Redirect Checker tool:

1. Paste the URL you want to test (e.g. http://example.com/page).
2. The tool follows the full chain and shows every hop with its status code.
3. You see the final destination, the total number of hops, and the final status.

Typical healthy results:

• http://example.com → 301 → https://example.com → 200 ✓
• example.com/page → 301 → example.com/new-page → 200 ✓

Typical unhealthy results:

• http://example.com → 301 → https://example.com → 404
• example.com/old → 301 → example.com/new → 301 → example.com/old → loop

301 vs canonical: which do you need?

• Use a 301 redirect when the duplicate URL should cease to exist (old URLs after migration, trailing-slash versions you want to retire).
• Use a canonical tag when both versions remain live but you want search engines to prefer one (e.g. tracking parameters, print views).

A redirect is the stronger signal. Canonical tags are hints; a 301 is a directive. You can audit your canonicals with the Canonical URL Checker.

Common redirect mistakes

• Redirecting everything to the homepage — a site-wide redirect to / after a migration loses the rankings of every deep page. Redirect each old URL to its direct replacement.
• 301 to a page that 404s — the redirect "works" but the destination is dead. Check the final URL with a redirect test.
• Using 302 for permanent moves — temporary redirects tell Google to keep the old URL indexed, so rankings never transfer.
• Case-sensitivity surprises — /Page and /page are different URLs on most Linux servers. Redirect both cases to the canonical form.

Check your redirects now

Run every old URL through the Redirect Checker before and after a site change. It takes seconds per URL and prevents the most expensive SEO regression there is: silently losing an indexed page.