Redirect Chain Checker

Finding out how many hops sit between an old URL and its final page

Migrations, HTTPS switches and slug changes leave redirects behind, and they stack up: HTTP to HTTPS, then to www, then old slug to new, three hops before anything loads. This tool lays out that path from curl output you paste in. It lists each response with its status and Location target, tallies the 3xx responses, and for chains of two or more suggests one Apache rule that skips the middle steps. That part runs locally in the page.

Step by step

1. Type the old address into the URL box; its path goes into the shortcut rule.
2. Open Terminal, or any shell that has curl, and run: curl -sIL https://example.com/old-page
3. Copy everything curl printed and paste it into the text area under the URL box.
4. Press Analyze Chain. You get a table of hops, a verdict, and, where it applies, a ready-made RedirectMatch 301 line.

What to watch for

The Quick Live Check button is not a chain tracer. Web browsers block scripts from reading another domain's status codes and Location headers, so the page hands your URL to allorigins.win, a free public proxy, which follows the redirects on its own servers. You only learn whether the page loaded through the proxy. It also means the URL leaves your machine, so skip it for private staging links with tokens in them.

If the final row of a pasted chain shows a 404 or 5xx, fix the destination first, or the generated rule will point straight at the error. Its ^ and $ anchors make a rule for /blog fire on /blog and /blog/ but not on /blog/anything. Other servers and plugins need their own version.

Questions people ask

How many redirects is too many?

One is fine. Google says Googlebot stops after ten hops, which is far more than you should ever need. Each extra hop delays every visitor, so aim the first redirect at the destination.

Why does curl show a different chain than my browser?

The -I option sends a HEAD request, and a few servers answer HEAD differently from a normal GET. If the results look wrong, run curl -sL -o /dev/null -D - with the address, which uses GET and prints every hop's headers in the format the tool reads.

Does a 302 in the middle of the chain matter?

A 302 or 307 says the move is temporary. Google treats permanent redirects (301 and 308) as a strong signal that the target should be the canonical URL and temporary ones as a weaker signal, so use a permanent code for a permanent move.

Further reading: 301 vs 302 Redirects: When to Use Each (and Why It Matters) and Internal URL Redirect Chain: How to Find and Flatten It.

The same tool is also published on the static mirror at seoprocheck.github.io, and the rest of the set is on the free tools page.