Workflow
Redirect Analysis
A step-by-step way to audit redirects after a migration or cleanup: find chains, loops, temporary redirects that should be permanent, and links that land on the wrong page.
Redirects pile up quietly. A domain move adds one, an HTTPS switch adds another, a URL restructure adds a third, and a few years later a single old link passes through four hops before it reaches a page that may not be the right one anymore.
Auditing them means answering three questions for every important URL: does it still reach a working page, is it the page you intended, and does it get there in one step?
What to look for
- Chains: more than one hop between the old URL and its final page
- Loops: redirects that eventually point back to themselves and never resolve
- Temporary redirects (302, 307) on moves that are actually permanent
- Redirects to the homepage or a category page instead of the closest match
- Hops that cross to an unexpected domain, such as an expired partner or tracking domain
Which URLs to start with
You don’t need every URL. Start with the ones that carry traffic and links: old URLs from a migration mapping file, the top landing pages in your analytics, URLs with backlinks, and links used in ads, emails and printed material. A sitemap export covers the current site; the old URLs usually live in the migration spreadsheet.
The audit, step by step
- Collect the source URLs and, if you have one, the intended destination for each
- Sign in and paste them into the URL checker; each URL uses one check from your daily allowance
- Review the hop count of each result, starting with the Long chains filter (over 3 hops)
- Open each chain and check the final page against the intended destination
- Fix redirects at the source so each old URL points straight to its final page
- Run the same list again after deployment and caching have caught up
Limits to keep in mind
Pages behind a login, or protected by bot detection, can respond differently to a checker than to a person.
A redirect report shows where a URL goes. Whether that destination is the right content still needs a human decision.
Common questions
- How many redirect hops are too many?
- Aim for one. Search engines follow a limited number of hops, and each hop adds a round trip for visitors. Chains of three or more are almost always worth flattening.
- Should I use a 301 or a 308?
- Both are permanent. A 308 also guarantees the request method is kept, which matters for form submissions and APIs. For ordinary page moves either works.