Free Redirect Checker - Trace Every Redirect Hop

A redirect checker is a free online tool that traces the complete HTTP redirect chain of any URL, showing every hop a request travels through before reaching its final destination. When you enter a URL, the redirect checker sends a request and inspects the response. If the server returns a 301, 302, 307, or 308 status code along with a Location header, the tool follows that redirect and records it. The process repeats until a non-redirect response (typically 200 OK) is reached. You need a redirect checker for several reasons: diagnosing SEO problems caused by long redirect chains, verifying that 301 redirects are correctly preserving link equity during a site migration, troubleshooting broken or looping redirects, and auditing affiliate or marketing URLs for transparency. Search engines like Google strongly prefer direct paths, so a redirect checker helps you find and fix performance bottlenecks before they hurt rankings.

Google's John Mueller has publicly stated that while Googlebot will follow up to roughly five redirects in a single crawl attempt, every additional hop wastes crawl budget and slows the user experience. The practical SEO rule is to keep redirect chains at one hop whenever possible. Two hops are acceptable but should be cleaned up when feasible. Three or more hops start to noticeably impact page speed, dilute PageRank signals, and can cause some crawlers to abandon the chain entirely. According to research by Ahrefs and Moz, redirect chains of three or more hops can leak between 10 and 15 percent of link equity, and pages with long chains often see slower indexing. Our redirect checker flags chains longer than two hops so you can fix them by pointing the first URL directly to the final destination, eliminating intermediate hops.

The four most common HTTP redirect status codes serve different purposes. A 301 Moved Permanently tells browsers and search engines that the resource has been permanently relocated, which transfers full link equity and is the correct choice for site migrations and URL changes. A 302 Found indicates a temporary redirect that may change again, so search engines keep the original URL indexed and typically do not pass link equity. A 307 Temporary Redirect is similar to 302 but strictly preserves the HTTP method (a POST stays a POST), making it safer for form submissions and API endpoints. A 308 Permanent Redirect is the modern equivalent of 301 that also preserves the HTTP method. For SEO purposes, use 301 or 308 for permanent moves and 302 or 307 only for genuinely temporary redirects such as maintenance pages or geo-based routing. Our redirect checker labels each hop with its exact status code so you can verify the right type is being used.

Yes, redirect chains directly slow down page load times because every hop requires a new DNS lookup, TCP handshake, and TLS negotiation if HTTPS is used. Google's PageSpeed Insights and Web.dev both list 'Avoid multiple page redirects' as a Core Web Vitals diagnostic. Each redirect typically adds between 200 and 600 milliseconds depending on the user's network and the server's geographic distance. On mobile networks the penalty is even higher. For a two-hop redirect, users can wait an extra second or more before content begins to render, which hurts Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores. Slow LCP is a confirmed Google ranking signal. Our redirect checker reports the response time of each individual hop and the total chain duration, making it easy to quantify the speed cost of your current redirect setup before users and search engines abandon the page.

Yes, our redirect checker detects infinite redirect loops by enforcing a maximum of 10 hops per chain. If the tool follows 10 redirects without reaching a terminal response, it returns a 'Too many redirects' error and shows you exactly where the loop is occurring. Redirect loops happen when URL A redirects to URL B, URL B redirects back to URL A (or to another URL that eventually points back), creating an infinite cycle. These loops crash user browsers with 'ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS' errors and block search engine crawlers entirely, removing affected pages from the index. Common causes include misconfigured HTTPS redirects, conflicting .htaccess rules, CMS plugins fighting over canonical URLs, and CDN settings that conflict with origin server rules. Run the redirect checker against any URL throwing browser redirect errors to identify the exact hop where the loop begins.

Yes, our redirect checker works with all major URL shortening services including Bitly (bit.ly), TinyURL, t.co (Twitter/X), Ow.ly, Rebrandly, Short.io, Cutt.ly, and UseClick.io. Shortened URLs are essentially single-hop or multi-hop redirects, and our tool reveals every step in the chain. This is particularly useful for security audits because attackers often nest multiple shorteners to obscure the final phishing or malware destination. The redirect checker also works on branded short domains, affiliate cloaking systems, and marketing tracking URLs that pass through analytics platforms before landing the user. You can see the exact status codes, response times, and HTTPS status of every intermediate server. For a transparent alternative to opaque shorteners, UseClick offers branded short links with automatic preview cards so your audience knows where they are going before they click.