Trace the full HTTP redirect chain for any URL — see 301/302/307/308 hops, status codes, and final destination.
Paste a URL and the Redirect Checker follows every redirect until it reaches the final destination, showing each hop's status code (301, 302, 307, 308) and where it points. A 301 is a permanent move that passes ranking signals to the new URL; a 302 or 307 is temporary and tells search engines to keep the original indexed. The best result is a single, direct redirect — chains of two, three, or more hops slow the page, waste crawl budget, and can leak link equity, while a loop (A to B to A) breaks the page entirely. Use it to confirm old URLs point cleanly to new ones after a migration, to unmask where a shortened link really goes, and to spot mixed HTTP/HTTPS or www/non-www chains that should be collapsed into one redirect.
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Quick answer
Paste a URL and the Redirect Checker follows every redirect until it reaches the final destination, showing each hop's status code (301, 302, 307, 308) and where it points. A 301 is a permanent move that passes ranking signals to the new URL; a 302 or 307 is temporary and tells search engines to keep the original indexed. The best result is a single, direct redirect — chains of two, three, or more hops slow the page, waste crawl budget, and can leak link equity, while a loop (A to B to A) breaks the page entirely. Use it to confirm old URLs point cleanly to new ones after a migration, to unmask where a shortened link really goes, and to spot mixed HTTP/HTTPS or www/non-www chains that should be collapsed into one redirect.
What is Redirect Checker?
The Redirect Checker traces the complete HTTP redirect chain for any URL, following each hop from the address you enter to the final landing page. For every step it shows the status code and redirect type — 301 permanent, 302 and 307 temporary, or 308 permanent — so you can see whether a URL resolves cleanly in one hop or bounces through a wasteful chain. Because every extra redirect adds latency and can dilute the SEO value passed to the destination, seeing the full path laid out hop by hop is essential for diagnosing migrations, link shorteners, and tracking URLs.
How to use Redirect Checker
1
Enter the starting URL
Paste the URL you want to trace — an old page, a short link, or a tracking URL. The tool sends a request and follows the Location header on each redirect response.
2
Read the chain top to bottom
Each row is one hop, showing its status code and where it forwards to. A clean result is one redirect (301) followed by a 200 at the destination.
3
Flag the problem hops
Look for chains longer than one hop, any 302 where a 301 belongs, protocol switches (http to https), or a loop. Each of these is an issue worth fixing at the server level.
4
Fix and re-check
Update your server or CMS rules so the source URL redirects directly to the final destination in a single 301, redeploy, then trace the URL again to confirm the chain is now one hop.
Try it when you need to…
Try it when you've migrated a site and need to confirm old URLs redirect directly and permanently to their new homes
Try it when a shortened or tracking link looks suspicious and you want to see its real destination before visiting
Try it when a page loads slowly or throws a 'too many redirects' error and you need to find the chain or loop causing it
Use cases
Verify after a site migration that every old URL 301-redirects directly to its new equivalent instead of chaining through an intermediate page
Reveal the true destination of a shortened link (bit.ly, t.co, lnkd.in) before clicking, to check it isn't leading somewhere malicious
Diagnose a slow page by exposing a redirect chain of three or four hops that could be collapsed into a single 301
Catch a temporary 302 that should have been a permanent 301, which is preventing ranking signals from moving to the new URL
Detect redirect loops where two URLs point at each other, producing the 'too many redirects' error that makes a page unreachable
Key features
✓Full hop-by-hop visualization of the entire redirect chain from start to final URL
✓Status code and redirect type shown at each step (301, 302, 307, 308, and terminal 200)
✓Clear identification of the final destination URL and whether it returns a healthy 200
✓Detection of redirect loops and excessively long chains
✓Multi-URL support for batch-checking many links at once
Tips & best practices
Collapse chains to a single hop. Google follows chains but each extra redirect adds latency and a small loss of passed authority; a direct A-to-final 301 is always better than A-to-B-to-final.
Use 301 (or 308) for permanent moves and 302 (or 307) only for genuinely temporary ones. A 302 left on a permanent move keeps the old URL indexed and prevents the new page from inheriting the old one's ranking history.
307 and 308 preserve the HTTP method and body, so a POST stays a POST; 301 and 302 can cause some clients to switch a POST to a GET. This matters for API endpoints and form submissions, not just page URLs.
HSTS can produce a 307 internal redirect from http to https that the browser applies before any network request — that's expected and secure, not a chain you need to remove.
Frequently asked questions
A 301 is a permanent redirect: it tells search engines the page has moved for good, so they transfer the original URL's ranking signals to the new one and eventually drop the old URL from the index. A 302 (and 307) is temporary: search engines keep the original URL indexed because you're signaling the move is short-term. Using a 302 for a permanent change is a common mistake that stalls the new page's rankings.
Yes, longer chains hurt in two ways. Each hop adds network latency that slows the page for users and consumes crawl budget for bots, and while Google passes ranking signals through 301 chains, very long chains risk signal dilution and Google may stop following after several hops. Aim to redirect the original URL straight to the final destination in a single step.
A redirect loop occurs when URLs point at each other — A redirects to B, and B redirects back to A — so the request never resolves and browsers show a 'too many redirects' error. It's usually caused by conflicting server rules, a misconfigured www/non-www or http/https rule, or a CMS plugin fighting the server config. The checker detects the loop; fix it by making sure only one rule governs each redirect direction.
It follows up to about 10 hops, which is well beyond any healthy configuration. If a URL exceeds that, the tool reports an excessive-chain or loop warning rather than continuing indefinitely. In practice, any chain longer than one or two hops should be flattened, so hitting the limit is itself a sign something needs fixing.
307 (Temporary Redirect) and 308 (Permanent Redirect) are the strict counterparts of 302 and 301. Their key difference is that they guarantee the HTTP method and request body are preserved — a POST stays a POST — whereas older 301/302 handling sometimes converted a POST into a GET. Use 308 for permanent moves and 307 for temporary ones when method preservation matters, such as with APIs or form endpoints.
That's the standard and desirable behavior. Sites redirect insecure http requests to the secure https version, usually with a 301, so all traffic is encrypted. If HSTS is enabled, browsers even perform a 307 internal upgrade before any request leaves the device. A single clean http-to-https redirect is healthy; the thing to avoid is a chain like http to https to www-to-non-www stacked across several hops.
Yes. Paste the short URL (bit.ly, t.co, tinyurl, etc.) and the checker follows its redirect to reveal the true final destination without you having to click through. This is useful for safety — verifying a link isn't leading to a phishing or malware page — and for analytics, since many marketing and social links route through one or more tracking redirects before landing on the real page.