Redirect Checker

Redirect Chain Checker

Analyze redirect chains with latency tracking and SEO impact analysis.

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Redirect Checker for All Four Domain Versions

Enter a domain and we test all four canonical versions: http, https, www and non-www. You get the full redirect chain for each one, showing every hop's from-URL, to-URL and HTTP status code. Free, no signup, results in seconds.

All four URL versionsEvery hop and statusCatches 302 mistakesFree, no signup

What does a redirect checker do?

A redirect checker follows a URL through every redirect it passes through and reports each hop with its status code. This one tests all four versions of a domain at once: http, https, www and non-www. That shows whether all four end at a single address, how many hops it takes, and whether each hop uses the right status code.

The four URLs

Your homepage has four possible addresses

Every domain can be reached four ways, and each one is a different URL as far as a crawler is concerned. Three of them should redirect to the fourth. When they do not, you have one business with four homepages competing with each other.

1

http versus https

If the insecure http version still answers with a 200 instead of redirecting, you have a duplicate of your entire site sitting on the wrong protocol. This happens most often after an SSL certificate is added but the server rule is never written.

2

www versus non-www

Google has no preference between them. What matters is that you pick one and the other redirects to it. Split sites usually come from a host default fighting a WordPress setting, and nobody notices because both versions look perfectly normal in a browser.

3

When all four answer

Links, shares and citations get spread across four addresses instead of accumulating on one. Google will usually work out which you meant, but it is guessing, and you have handed it a puzzle instead of an answer. This is a ten-minute fix at the server.

One-line fixes for the usual setups

The rules that send all four versions to a single address.

Apache: match non-secure requests
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
Apache: send them to https permanently
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
NGINX: permanent redirect
return 301 https://example.com$request_uri;
PHP: permanent
header('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
PHP: temporary
header('HTTP/1.1 302 Found');
WordPress: set one canonical address
Settings > General > WordPress Address and Site Address
Redirect chains

Two hops where one would do

A chain is when a URL redirects to another URL that redirects again: http to https to www to the final page. Google's crawlers follow up to ten redirect hops by default, and if the content is not reached within that, the URL is treated as an error and not indexed. Ten is the ceiling, not the target. Every extra hop is another request and another wait for the visitor.

Status codes

A 302 where a 301 belongs

The status code tells Google what the redirect means, and the difference is not cosmetic. Google's documentation is explicit: permanent redirects tell it to show the new URL in results, temporary ones tell it to keep showing the old one.

1

Permanent: 301 and 308

Google uses these as a strong signal that the target should be the canonical URL. Use them whenever you are confident the redirect will not be reverted. A permanent move served as a temporary redirect is one of the most common reasons a site move stalls halfway.

2

Temporary: 302, 303 and 307

Google follows these but treats them as a weak signal and keeps the original URL in results. That is right for a page that is genuinely coming back, such as a service paused for a month. It is wrong for a page you have retired for good.

Questions

Redirect Checker FAQ

What is the difference between a 301 and a 308?
Both mean the page has moved permanently, and Google's documentation lists both as permanent redirects that act as a strong canonical signal. The technical difference is about request methods: a 308 keeps the original request method and body unchanged, while a 301 can be turned into a GET by older clients. For ordinary page redirects, either is fine.
What is the difference between a 302 and a 307?
Both are temporary. Google follows each of them but treats the redirect as a weak signal and keeps the original URL in search results. The difference is again about method handling: a 307 preserves the request method and body, while a 302 may be changed to a GET. If the move is permanent, neither is the right code.
How many redirect hops are too many?
Google's crawlers follow up to ten redirect hops by default, and a URL whose content is not reached within that limit gets flagged as a redirect error and left out of the index. Ten is the failure point, not a budget to spend. Aim for one hop from any starting URL to the final destination.
Should I choose www or non-www?
It genuinely does not matter for rankings. Pick whichever you prefer, make the other one redirect to it with a 301, and use that version consistently in your sitemap, canonical tags, internal links and citations. The cost is in being inconsistent, not in the choice itself. Once picked, do not change it later without good reason.
How long should I keep a redirect in place?
Google's guidance on site moves is to keep redirects for as long as possible, generally at least one year, so it has time to recrawl and reassign the links pointing at your old URLs. From a visitor's point of view, keeping them indefinitely is kinder still. Meanwhile, update your own internal links to point at the final URL directly.
Does this check redirects on every page of my site?
No. This tool tests the four canonical versions of one domain, which is the check that catches the big structural problems. Page-level redirect chains across a whole site need a crawl that follows every internal link, which is part of our website audit rather than something we can do for free in three seconds.
Keep going

Other free tools worth a minute

Four homepages is rarely the only thing wrong.

Redirect problems usually travel with slow pages, orphaned URLs and missing local signals. Our website audit finds the lot and hands you a fix list in priority order. Book a free strategy call to see what we would look at.

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