Redirect Chain Tracer

Trace every redirect hop for any URL. See 301, 302, 307, 308 status codes, Location headers, redirect loops, and the final destination - in one click.

What it checks

Every hop, every status code, every Location.

One trace, the full chain - so you can spot loops, surprise downgrades, and accidental chains.

Full redirect chain

Every hop from your original URL to the final destination, in order - with the URL, status code, and Location header at each step.

Status code mix

301 (permanent), 302 / 307 (temporary), and 308 (permanent, method-preserving). The right code matters for SEO and for whether POST bodies survive the hop.

HTTP to HTTPS

Catches surprise downgrades and confirms HTTPS is enforced. A missing HSTS plus an HTTP-first redirect is an interception opportunity.

www vs apex

Shows which direction you canonicalize - apex to www or www to apex. Inconsistency splits SEO link equity and confuses analytics.

Redirect loops

Spots A→B→A loops and excessively long chains. Both fail in browsers (ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS) and quietly tank crawl budget.

Final destination

The URL the chain resolves to - and the final response status, so you know whether you landed on a 200 or a polite 404.

How it works

From URL to full chain in about a second.

No curl -L, no DevTools - just paste and read.

Paste a URL

Full URL including http:// or https://. Use HTTP to confirm your HTTPS redirect is in place, or HTTPS to validate the canonical path.

Run the trace

We send a single GET from our edge and follow every Location header until we hit a non-redirect, a loop, or a safe hop limit.

Read the chain

You'll see each hop with its status code, the Location it sent, and the final URL - everything you need to confirm the chain is correct.

Why redirects matter

Every hop costs you something.

A clean, single permanent redirect is invisible. A messy chain costs latency, link equity, and sometimes correctness.

SEO & link equity

301 and 308 pass link equity to the new URL; 302 and 307 do not. Each extra hop dilutes crawl budget and gives Google another chance to mis-attribute the canonical. One permanent redirect to the final canonical URL is the goal.

Performance

Every hop is a full round trip - DNS, TCP, TLS, request, response. Three redirects on a mobile network is half a second of extra latency before the user's browser even starts asking for the page itself.

Correctness

Use the wrong status code on a POST endpoint and you'll silently drop the body. Build a loop and every browser fails with ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS. Skip HSTS and you leave the door open to a downgrade attack on the first hop.

Reference

Redirect status codes, decoded.

Which code to use, when, and what each one actually means for the next hop.

301 Moved Permanently

Permanent redirect. Search engines transfer link equity to the new URL and cache aggressively. Use for canonical moves (apex→www, http→https).

302 Found

Temporary redirect. Clients may change the request method to GET on the next hop. Used a lot historically but rarely the right choice today.

307 Temporary Redirect

Like 302, but explicitly preserves the request method and body. The correct temporary redirect for POST endpoints during maintenance.

308 Permanent Redirect

Permanent and method-preserving. The modern successor to 301 for cases where the body has to survive (rare in the wild but the most correct).

Meta refresh

An HTML-level redirect via <meta http-equiv="refresh">. Still works, but slower, worse for SEO, and bypassed by some crawlers. Avoid when an HTTP redirect would do.

JavaScript redirect

window.location = '...' fires after the page renders. Costs at least one full pageload of latency, and search engines may or may not follow. Use HTTP redirects whenever you can.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions.

Quick answers about the tracer and how to read a chain.

Why is my redirect chain so long?

The classic culprits stack: http://example.com → https://example.com → https://www.example.com → https://www.example.com/. Each hop is a real round trip. Collapse them to a single redirect with the final canonical URL.

Does this follow meta refresh and JS redirects?

We follow HTTP-level redirects (anything with a Location header). Meta-refresh and JavaScript redirects fire client-side after the response is parsed - they show up as a 200 here, which is itself useful information.

Why does my redirect break POST requests?

302 and 301 traditionally let clients downgrade POST to GET on the next hop, which drops the body. If you need the body to survive the redirect, use 307 (temporary) or 308 (permanent) instead.

How does this affect SEO?

Search engines pass link equity through 301 and 308 redirects, but each hop adds latency. Long chains hurt crawl budget and Core Web Vitals. The general rule: one permanent redirect to the canonical URL, nothing more.

How often should I check redirects?

After every deploy that touches routing, every CDN config change, and every domain migration. For continuous coverage, SiteTrak watches redirect chains and alerts if a hop changes, breaks, or starts to loop.

Is this tool really free?

Yes - no signup, no email harvesting. We rate-limit per-IP to keep it fast for everyone. The paid product is the monitoring side: continuous checks and change alerts.

Keep going

Other free tools you'll like.

Run one once, or set up SiteTrak and never run them again.