Redirect Checker

The Redirect Checker is a free online tool that traces the complete HTTP redirect chain of any URL — from the very first request to the final destination — so you can see every 301, 302, 307, and 308 hop in between. Whether you need to test a 301 redirect after a domain migration, check 301 redirect chains left behind by an old site structure, or confirm that your http:// URLs now resolve straight to https://www in a single hop, this tool shows you exactly what a browser (and Googlebot) experiences when it requests your URL. That matters for SEO because redirects are how you preserve rankings, backlinks, and crawl budget whenever a URL changes: one clean 301 tells Google "this page has permanently moved — transfer its authority to the new URL", while a broken loop or a chain of intermediate hops can silently delay indexing, split link equity, and drag your pages down the results. The redirect checker sends a real server-side HTTP request (bypassing browser CORS restrictions), follows each redirect, and reports the status code, the target location, and the response headers at every step. No browser extensions, no sign-up, and the URLs you check are never stored or logged.

1. 1

   Paste the URL you want to test into the input field — start with the exact old URL (e.g. http://example.com/old-page), because that is what browsers and Googlebot actually request.

2. 2

   Click "Check redirects" (or press Enter). The tool issues a real server-side HTTP request and follows every redirect in the chain automatically.

3. 3

   Read each step in the results: the status code (301/302/307/308), the Location target it redirects to, and the response headers the server returned.

4. 4

   Compare the final destination against the URL you expected. If it lands anywhere else, there is a misconfigured redirect rule somewhere in the chain.

5. 5

   Count the hops. More than two hops means a chain worth collapsing — ideally A→C, not A→B→C.

• Domain migrations — verify that every important old URL 301-redirects to the correct new URL, not to the homepage.
• HTTP → HTTPS upgrades — confirm http:// URLs redirect exactly once, directly to the https:// canonical version.
• Affiliate links — trace where affiliate, cloaked, or third-party tracking links actually land before you promote them.
• URL shorteners — debug bit.ly, tinyurl, and t.co links to see the real destination behind them.
• Redirect chain audits — find A→B→C chains that waste crawl budget and dilute link equity after site migrations.
• 301 vs 302 checks — confirm permanent moves use 301/308 so Google transfers ranking signals to the new URL.

• Use 301/308 for permanent moves (they pass link equity to the new URL) and 302/307 only for temporary maintenance, A/B tests, or seasonal pages.
• Always redirect old URLs to the most relevant new page — a blanket redirect of every 404 to the homepage is treated by Google as a soft-404 and loses the link equity.
• Keep redirects single-hop. Collapse A→B→C chains into A→C: every extra hop adds 100–500ms of latency and Google stops following after roughly five hops.
• Land every redirect on the exact canonical URL — if a page is canonically https://www.example.com/page, never redirect to a non-www or http variant.
• After changing redirect rules, update internal links and sitemap entries to point directly at the final URLs so crawlers stop re-requesting the old paths.
• Test the chain after every deploy. Run your top 10 old URLs through this redirect checker — a broken rule is invisible until rankings and traffic drop.

• After a site migration, check your top 10 old URLs with this tool to ensure each one 301-redirects to the correct new URL.
• Redirect chains (A→B→C) waste crawl budget and add latency — collapse them to a single A→C hop.
• Use 301/308 for permanent redirects so SEO link equity is passed. Reserve 302/307 for genuinely temporary changes.
• Google stops following redirects after ~5 hops. If your chain is longer, the final page may never get indexed.