--- title: Free Redirect Checker description: Follow every redirect a URL goes through — each hop with its status code, Location header and response time, the final destination, and the problems along the way: chains longer than they need to be, loops, a hop back to plain HTTP, or a temporary 302 where a permanent 301 belongs. From a real probe location. canonical: https://watchfor.io/redirect-checker --- [Back to all free tools](/free-tools) # Redirect Checker Follow every redirect a URL goes through — each hop with its status code, Location header and response time, the final destination, and the problems along the way: chains longer than they need to be, loops, a hop back to plain HTTP, or a temporary 302 where a permanent 301 belongs. From a real probe location. Result No result yet Enter the inputs above and press Run. Results appear here in a moment. Monitor this 24/7 — get alerts on the first failure. [Start free](/auth/sign-up) Only run these tools against systems you own or are authorized to test. Using them to scan or probe systems without permission violates our [Terms](/legal/terms). ## What is Redirect Checker ? Type example.com into a browser and, before any page appears, it may be redirected three times: http://example.com → https://example.com → https://www.example.com → https://www.example.com/en/ . Each hop is a full round-trip, each is a place for a mistake to live — a 302 where a 301 belongs, a hop back to plain HTTP, two rules that bounce between www and non-www forever — and each one is invisible from the final page, which loads fine. This checker follows the chain one request at a time from a real probe location and shows every hop: the URL requested, the status code, the Location it pointed to, the response time, and the final destination and status. Then it says what's wrong with the chain: too long, a loop, a temporary redirect on a permanent move, an HTTPS-to-HTTP downgrade, an ending on an error, or a page that redirects again from its HTML. ## How it works Hop by hop, never following automatically: - 1 Request without following — A GET to the URL with redirect-following off, so the response is the hop's own — its 3xx status and Location header — rather than whatever it eventually leads to. - 2 Resolve the next URL — Location may be absolute or relative; it's resolved against the current URL the way browsers do. A hop that points at a private address, a non-HTTP scheme, or a URL already visited stops the chain with that reason. - 3 Repeat, up to ten hops — Until a non-redirect status arrives. Browsers give up at 20; search engines follow far fewer, so ten is a generous limit that still catches loops quickly. - 4 Judge the chain — Count, statuses, scheme changes, hosts, and the final page's first bytes (for meta-refresh or JavaScript redirects) become a short list of findings with the fix for each. Every hop is a real request from the probe, so a chain that behaves differently by region (geo-redirects) can be checked from the region in question. ## When you'd use it ### After a domain or HTTPS migration Old URLs must reach new ones in one 301 . The checker shows the chain from any old URL — including the http:// and non-www forms people still have bookmarked — and flags every extra hop. ### ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS Two rules fighting: the CDN forces HTTPS while the origin, seeing plain HTTP behind the proxy, redirects to HTTPS again; or www ↔ non-www rules in two places. The chain shows the loop and the hop where it starts. ### SEO audit Redirect chains waste crawl budget and leak ranking at every 302 . Check the canonical entry points and the top landing pages; fix chains to point straight at the destination. ### Tracking and affiliate links A short link → tracker → tracker → landing page. See where it actually goes, what each hop is, and whether any of it drops to HTTP. ## Reading the result ### Hops One row per request: status, URL, the Location it sent, response time. The last row is the destination — its status is what visitors get. ### Redirect count Zero means the URL answers directly. One is the ideal for any moved URL. Three or more is a chain worth collapsing. ### Findings Red for what breaks visitors or security (loop, unfinished chain, error at the end, HTTPS downgrade); amber for what costs speed or SEO (length, temporary codes, body-based redirects). ### Total time The sum of all hops from the probe — what a visitor waits before the real page starts loading. ## Check it yourself curl -sIL http://example.com | grep -iE '^(HTTP|location)' -L follows redirects and -I prints each hop's status and Location — one pair of lines per hop. ## Common pitfalls ### Chaining http → https → www instead of one hop Each rule is correct alone and wrong together. Configure http://example.com to redirect straight to the final https://www.example.com/ , not to the next step. ### Defaulting to 302 Many frameworks' redirect() defaults to a temporary code. For a moved page, browsers won't cache it and search engines won't transfer ranking. Use 301 or 308 . ### Meta refresh and JavaScript redirects They work in browsers and are invisible to this check (flagged from the HTML when spotted) and to most crawlers. Replace them with a server-side redirect. ## Run Redirect Checker on every change, not just once. Get alerts the moment something breaks — across HTTP, DNS, SSL, RDAP, ping, blacklist and more. Free forever for 10 monitors. No card. [Start free](/auth/sign-up) ## Frequently asked questions How many redirects are too many? More than one for a moved URL. Browsers stop at 20, Googlebot follows up to 10 (fewer historically), and every hop adds latency. Aim for a single 301 to the final URL. What causes a redirect loop? Two components each redirecting to what the other redirects away from: CDN forcing HTTPS while the origin behind it sees HTTP and redirects again (fix with X-Forwarded-Proto handling), or www/non-www rules set in both the CDN and the web server, or a cookie-based redirect that never receives its cookie. 301 or 308, 302 or 307? 301 / 302 may change a POST to a GET on the next request; 308 / 307 preserve the method. For pages, 301 is universal; for API endpoints and forms, 308 / 307 . Does a redirect chain hurt SEO? Yes: each hop can lose a little ranking signal, chains delay indexing, and long ones may be abandoned by the crawler. Search engines recommend redirecting directly to the final URL. Why do I get a different chain than the tool? Geo or device-based redirects (language, mobile), cookies your browser already has, or an HSTS entry that makes your browser skip the http:// hop. Try another probe location; the tool sends no cookies and honours no HSTS cache. Can I monitor that a redirect stays correct? Yes — a website monitor with redirect following off can assert the exact status and Location of the old URL, and alert the moment the chain changes. ## Related web tools - [MCP Server CheckerTest a Model Context Protocol server: initialize handshake, protocol version, capabilities and the full tool inventory.](/mcp-server-checker) - [SSL Certificate CheckInspect certificate validity, expiry, SANs, issuer and chain trust.](/ssl-checker) - [SSL/TLS GradeGrade a server's TLS config A+ to F — protocols, ciphers, forward secrecy, post-quantum, HSTS and certificate, with the exact reasons.](/ssl-grade-checker) - [HTTP HeadersInspect response headers, status, redirect chain and security headers.](/http-header-checker) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/redirect-checker · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt