Redirect chain
What is a redirect chain?
A redirect chain is a sequence of two or more redirects between the URL that was requested and the page that finally loads, such as A → B → C. Chains build up as sites change URLs, move to HTTPS or switch domains, with each new redirect added on top of the old ones.
A typical chain: http://example.com/page → https://example.com/page → https://www.example.com/page → https://www.example.com/page/. Each hop is a separate request the browser or crawler has to make.
Why redirect chain matters for SEO
Every hop adds a round trip, which slows the page for visitors, especially on mobile. For crawlers, Google says long chains have a negative effect on crawling, and Googlebot generally follows up to 10 hops before giving up and reporting a redirect error. Other crawlers may stop sooner.
Chains also multiply the chance of something going wrong: one hop changes to a 404 or loops back, and every URL earlier in the chain breaks with it. Fixing them is one of the quickest wins in a technical SEO audit.
How to fix a redirect chain
- Crawl the site and list every URL that takes more than one redirect to resolve, including old URLs from past migrations and your backlink list.
- For each chain, change the first redirect so it points straight at the final URL: A → C, B → C.
- Combine protocol and host rules so http://example.com goes to https://www.example.com in one hop.
- Update internal links, canonicals and the sitemap to use the final URL, so no internal path hits a redirect at all.
- Re-test each fixed URL and check that it returns a single 301 followed by a 200.
Redirect chain example
Before: /blog/seo-tips → /blog/seo-tips-2024 → /guides/seo-tips (two hops). After: /blog/seo-tips → /guides/seo-tips and /blog/seo-tips-2024 → /guides/seo-tips (one hop each), with internal links updated to /guides/seo-tips.
Redirect chain FAQ
How many redirects does Google follow?
Googlebot generally follows up to 10 redirect hops. After that it stops and Search Console reports a redirect error. Aim for one hop anyway.
Are redirect chains bad for SEO?
Yes, in practice. They slow pages, waste crawling and make the redirect more fragile. They rarely cause a ranking drop on their own, but they are easy to fix.
Related SEO terms
A 301 redirect permanently sends visitors and search engines from one URL to another and tells Google the new URL should be indexed.
A redirect loop is when redirects send a URL back to itself, so the page never loads and browsers show a too-many-redirects error.
A 302 redirect temporarily sends visitors to another URL while telling search engines to keep the original URL indexed.
Crawl budget is the set of URLs Google can and wants to crawl on a site. It only becomes a constraint on very large or fast-changing sites.
Internal links are links from one page on your site to another. They help visitors navigate, help crawlers find pages and spread link authority.
HTTP status codes are three-digit numbers a server returns with each response to say whether a request worked, moved or failed.