Free Online Redirect Checker

1. Enter the starting URL, often the http:// version, to see the full path to HTTPS.
2. Press Check to trace every hop up to a safe limit.
3. Read the numbered chain — each row shows the status code, the URL and the next Location.
4. Confirm permanent moves use 301 rather than 302, and that the chain ends in a 200.
5. Collapse any chain of two or more hops into a single direct redirect where you can.

A redirect tells a client to request a different URL, signalled by a 3xx status code and a Location header as defined in RFC 9110. The two that matter for SEO are 301 Moved Permanently, which passes ranking signals to the destination and tells search engines to swap the indexed URL, and 302 Found, which is temporary and keeps the original URL indexed. Using a 302 for a permanent move is a frequent mistake that strands link equity on a URL you no longer use.

We follow the chain on our server with manual redirect handling, recording each hop's URL, status and Location header rather than letting the browser silently collapse them. This exposes redirect chains — two or more hops in sequence, such as HTTP to HTTPS to a trailing-slash URL — and redirect loops, which appear as repeating URLs. Each extra hop adds latency and slightly dilutes link signals, so collapsing chains to a single 301 is the goal.

Server-side tracing is necessary because browsers do not expose intermediate redirect responses to client JavaScript, and cross-origin requests are blocked by CORS.