Free SEO Tool
Free Redirect Checker
Follow any URL's full redirect chain, hop by hop. See every status code between the link and the page it lands on, and catch the chains, loops and temporary redirects a browser hides from you.
How to check a URL's redirects
Three steps, and only the first needs anything from you:
Paste your URLs
One per line, up to ten at a time. A bare domain works too, so example.com is enough and we will start at https for you.
We follow every hop
Each redirect is requested one at a time rather than followed automatically, which is the only way to see the hops in between the start and the destination.
Read the chain
You get every hop with its status code, the final destination, and a plain warning when we find a chain, a loop or a broken target.
What this url redirect checker reports
Most tools tell you where a link ends up. The useful information is in the hops in between, so that is what this one shows.
Every hop, in order
The full path from the URL you entered to the page that finally answers, with the status code and redirect type at each step.
Chains and loops
We flag chains longer than one hop and detect loops, where a URL eventually redirects back to somewhere it has already been.
Permanent against temporary
A 301 and a 302 look the same to a visitor and behave very differently for search engines. Each hop is labelled so the difference is obvious.
Meta refresh redirects
Some pages redirect from the HTML instead of an HTTP status. Those are invisible to most tools, so we read the page and report them too.
How long it took
Response time for the whole chain, because every extra hop is latency a visitor pays before they see anything.
Results you can keep
Copy the whole report as text, or download it as CSV to share with whoever owns the server configuration.
Types of redirects, and what each one means
A 301 redirect checker is really a status code reader. These are the codes you will see, and what each one tells a search engine.
| Code | Name | When it is used | What it means for SEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 301 | Moved Permanently | The page has moved for good | Passes ranking signals to the new URL. The default choice for a permanent move. |
| 302 | Found | A temporary detour | Signals the original URL should keep its ranking. Wrong for a permanent move, and the most common mistake we see. |
| 303 | See Other | After a form submission | Treated as temporary. Rare outside application flows. |
| 307 | Temporary Redirect | A temporary move that keeps the request method | The strict version of a 302. Still temporary, so ranking stays with the original URL. |
| 308 | Permanent Redirect | A permanent move that keeps the request method | The strict version of a 301, and it passes signals the same way. |
| Meta refresh | HTML redirect | Set in the page markup, not the server | Handled inconsistently by search engines and slower for visitors. Replace with a server-side 301 where you can. |
Why redirect chains hurt SEO
One redirect is normal and healthy. Several stacked on top of each other is a problem that grows quietly, usually after a migration.
- 1Every hop costs time. Each redirect is a separate round trip before anything renders. On mobile connections a three hop chain can add most of a second to a page that has not started loading yet.
- 2Crawlers give up. Search engines follow a limited number of hops before they stop. A long chain risks the destination never being reached, so the page you actually want indexed is the one that gets missed.
- 3Crawl budget goes to redirects. Every hop is a URL a crawler spends a request on. On a large site, thousands of chained redirects mean a meaningful share of crawling is spent going nowhere.
- 4Loops break the page outright. A redirect loop never resolves. Browsers show an error page and crawlers drop the URL, so a loop is not a slow page, it is no page at all.
Using it as a bulk redirect checker
Checking one URL at a time is fine for spot checks and useless during a migration, when the question is whether a few hundred old URLs all land where they should. Paste up to ten URLs on separate lines and each one is followed independently, then download the results as CSV and work through them in a spreadsheet.
The pattern worth looking for is not a single broken redirect. It is a rule that quietly applies to a whole section of the site, such as an http to https rule running before a path rule, which turns every old link into a two hop chain at once.
Once redirects resolve cleanly, the next things worth checking are whether crawlers are allowed in at all with the Robots.txt Checker, whether your destination URLs are listed for discovery with the XML Sitemap Generator, and where those pages actually rank with the SERP Checker.
Redirect checker FAQ
How to check if redirect is working?
Paste the URL into the redirect checker above and run it. A working redirect shows at least one hop with a 3xx status, then a final destination that answers with a 200. If the chain ends on a 404 or a 500 the redirect is firing but pointing somewhere broken, which is worth catching because the link still looks fine to anyone clicking it.
Is there a free redirect checker available?
Yes, this one. It checks up to ten URLs per run with no account and no sign-up, and shows the complete chain rather than just the final destination. Results can be copied as text or downloaded as CSV.
What does a 301 redirect indicate?
A 301 means the page has moved permanently. It tells browsers to use the new URL from now on and tells search engines to transfer the original page's ranking signals to the destination. If a move is permanent, a 301 is almost always the right status, and using a temporary one instead is the most common redirect mistake.
How to see where a link goes without opening it?
Paste it into the tool above. We request the URL and read the response rather than rendering the page, so you see the destination without visiting it. That is useful for shortened links, tracking links and anything you would rather inspect before clicking.
What does a 307 or 308 redirect mean?
They are the strict versions of 302 and 301. A 307 is a temporary redirect and a 308 is a permanent one, and unlike the older codes both guarantee the request method is preserved, so a POST stays a POST rather than being turned into a GET. For SEO, treat a 308 like a 301 and a 307 like a 302.
What is a redirect checker used for?
Mainly for finding problems you cannot see in a browser. A browser follows redirects silently and shows you the final page, so chains, temporary redirects used by mistake and loops all stay hidden. A redirect chain checker exposes each hop, which is how you catch a site migration that quietly built four hop chains, or an http to https rule running before a path rule.
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