The Redirect Audit That Matters

TL;DR • 5 min read

→ Redirect chains waste crawl budget and dilute link equity
→ Find chains: any redirect pointing to another redirect
→ Fix by updating to point directly to final destination
→ Check for redirect loops (infinite redirects)

Redirects seem simple. Point old URL to new URL. Done.

But over time, sites accumulate redirect debt. Chains get longer. Links break. Rankings suffer. And nobody notices until traffic tanks.

The Problems to Find

Chain limit

Google follows up to 5 redirects before giving up. More than 2 hops is already hurting you. Flatten every chain to a single redirect.

Redirect chains: A redirects to B, B redirects to C, C redirects to D. Each hop loses a small amount of link equity. Long chains lose a lot.

Redirect loops: A redirects to B, B redirects to A. The page never loads. Google can't crawl it.

Broken redirects: A redirects to B, but B returns a 404. The redirect is useless.

Soft 404s: A redirects to B, but B is a generic page (like the homepage) that doesn't match the original content. Google treats this as a soft 404.

The Quick Audit

Step 1: Export your backlink profile from Ahrefs, Semrush, or Search Console

Step 2: Run the linked URLs through a bulk HTTP status checker

Step 3: Flag anything that isn't a 200 status

Step 4: For redirects (301/302), follow the chain to the final destination

Free tools like httpstatus.io can check bulk URLs and show redirect chains.

Priority Fixes

Highest priority: Redirect chains from pages with backlinks.

If a page has external links pointing to it and that page redirects through a chain, you're losing link equity on every hop. Fix these first.

A -> B -> C -> D should become A -> D

Second priority: Internal link chains.

Your own internal links shouldn't go through redirects. Update the link to point to the final destination directly.

Third priority: Redirect loops and broken redirects.

These are complete failures. Nothing is being passed. Fix immediately.

The 301 vs 302 Question

301 = permanent. 302 = temporary.

Use 301s for anything that's a permanent change. Site migrations, URL structure changes, consolidated pages.

Use 302s only for genuinely temporary moves (rare).

If you see 302s being used for permanent changes, convert them to 301s. Google eventually treats 302s like 301s, but why make them guess?

The maintenance rule

Audit redirects quarterly. Every site migration, every URL change, every CMS update can create new redirect problems. Don't let them accumulate.

Prevention

When creating a new redirect:

Always redirect to the final destination, not an intermediate page
Check if the old URL already redirects somewhere (update that redirect instead of creating a chain)
Update internal links to point to the new URL directly
Document the redirect for future reference

Clean redirects are invisible. Messy redirects are invisible too, until they break something. Fix them before they become problems. This audit pairs well with log file analysis to see what Googlebot is actually experiencing.

Want more tactical SEO?

Practical frameworks you can implement today.

Browse all notes