Redirect Chains

What This Means

A URL resolves through two or more redirect hops before reaching the final 200 OK response. For example: URL A → 301 → URL B → 301 → URL C (200). Users and crawlers reach the content, but via multiple intermediate redirects.

Why It Matters for SEO

Each hop in a redirect chain: (1) introduces an additional HTTP round-trip, slowing page load; (2) potentially dilutes link equity (each step may reduce the signal passed from the original URL); (3) wastes crawl budget with extra requests. Redirect chains commonly accumulate over multiple site migrations — each migration adds one more hop without collapsing the previous chain.

What the Platform Checks

The platform follows each redirect until it reaches a non-redirect response, counting the number of hops. This check fires when the chain length is 2 or more hops (A → B → C or longer).

How to Fix It

• Collapse redirect chains into single 301 redirects pointing directly from the first URL to the final destination.
• A → B → C should become A → C (single 301), and B → C (single 301) if B must remain accessible.
• In practice: export your full redirect list, map each source to its final destination (following all hops), and update the server configuration so each source points directly to its ultimate final URL.
• Chains often accumulate in .htaccess or Nginx configuration files — update the source rule to point to the final destination.