Trace every redirect hop — 301, 302, 307, 308 — to the final URL
Our redirect checker fetches your URL with the equivalent of "do not follow redirects automatically". On every 3xx response it reads the Location header, follows it manually, and records the next hop. The result is the exact path a real browser (or search engine crawler) would take from your starting URL to the final page — including the status code, latency, server software, and Content-Type at each step.
Long redirect chains hurt both SEO and page-load performance. Search engines may stop following after a few hops, and every extra round-trip adds latency. The tool flags two common problems: HTTPS-to-HTTP downgrades (which silently strip TLS protection) and redirect loops (which break the site entirely). For SEO, prefer a single 301 to the final canonical URL rather than a chain of intermediate redirects.
Enter any http:// or https:// URL and the 301 redirect checker will follow up to 20 redirects, displaying every hop in order. URL shorteners, www-to-apex normalisation, country redirects, A/B-test redirects, and login-required redirects are all visible. Use it to debug your own site's redirect rules or verify that a vanity URL ends up where you expect.
A 301 redirect checker is a tool that follows every redirect hop from a starting URL to its final destination. It shows the HTTP status code (301, 302, 307, or 308) at each hop, the URL it redirects to, the latency, and whether HTTPS is maintained throughout the chain. Use it to audit redirect chains for SEO issues, HTTPS downgrades, and redirect loops.
Enter any URL into the redirect checker above and click Check. The tool follows every redirect hop automatically, showing you the status code, destination URL, and latency at each step. This lets you verify that your 301 redirect is working correctly and reaches the intended final URL without any unnecessary intermediate hops.
301 (Moved Permanently) and 308 (Permanent Redirect) tell clients and search engines the resource has moved permanently — they cache the redirect and pass link equity to the new URL. 302 (Found) and 307 (Temporary Redirect) are temporary; clients should keep using the original URL for future requests. The newer 307 and 308 strictly preserve the HTTP method and body (a POST stays a POST), while the older 301 and 302 may be downgraded to GET by some clients. Use 301/308 for permanent moves and 302/307 for short-term things like A/B tests or maintenance pages.
Each redirect hop costs DNS, TCP, and TLS time, multiplying page-load latency on mobile networks. Worse, search engines limit how many redirects they will follow — Google typically stops at around five hops and may drop the page from its index. Every additional 301 in a chain also dilutes link equity slightly. Consolidate chains so that a URL goes directly to the final destination in a single 301 instead of bouncing through multiple intermediate URLs.
A downgrade happens when a redirect from an https:// URL points to an http:// URL. Even if the visitor started on a secure page, the redirect drops them onto an unencrypted connection where cookies, form data, and request URLs are visible to anyone on the network path. This is almost always a misconfiguration. Fix it by ensuring all redirect rules preserve the scheme — redirect to "https://$host$request_uri" so the scheme is always https.
On the command line, "curl -I -L example.com" follows redirects and prints headers from each hop. Adding "-v" shows the raw request/response. You can also use the network tab in browser dev tools — disable "Preserve log", refresh, and see every hop with timings. For automated tests, tools like httpie ("http --follow example.com") or Postman with redirect tracing are convenient alternatives.
Redirect loops are usually caused by conflicting rules: for example, a CDN rule rewriting http://example.com → https://www.example.com while the origin server simultaneously rewrites https://www.example.com → http://example.com. Other common causes are aggressive HSTS combined with a misconfigured upstream, or login-required redirects that fail to set the session cookie. Trace the chain with this tool to identify the exact pair of URLs bouncing back and forth, then fix one side of the rule.
