Free Redirect Checker

Follow an address hop by hop, and check that every version of your site leads to one place

What the redirect checker looks for

Every website can be reached four ways: with http or https, and with or without www. They should all lead to exactly one of them. When they do not, visitors land on insecure or duplicate versions, and links pointing at the wrong version lose some of their value.

One home address

All four versions should end at the same address. If two of them answer separately, search engines may index both and split the site's reputation between them.

Short, not a chain

One redirect is ideal. Two are normal when the first only switches the same name from http to https, which browsers' built-in secure-site list requires. Longer chains cost time on every first visit, and crawlers follow only a limited number of hops.

Permanent, not temporary

A 301 or 308 says the move is permanent, so search engines pass the old address's standing to the new one. A 302 or 307 says “just for now”, and the old address stays in the index.

What the numbers mean

200 is a working page. 301 and 308 are permanent redirects, 302 and 307 temporary ones. 404 means not found, and anything starting with 5 is a server fault.

Redirects made by scripts are not seen

This tool follows redirects sent by the server, which is what search engines rely on. A page that redirects with JavaScript or a meta refresh tag shows here as a normal 200 page.

Sites that refuse automated visits

Some sites answer robots with 403 or a challenge page. The chain is still shown, but the final status may differ from what you see in a browser.

The generated server rules are a starting point for Apache (.htaccess) and nginx. Hosted site builders such as Shopify, Wix and Squarespace handle this in their domain settings instead.

Guide: broken links and redirects How many top sites get this right?

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