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A redirect automatically sends users and crawlers from one URL to another. For SEO, 301 (Permanent) redirects are the standard choice — they pass approximately 99% of link equity to the new URL and signal to Google that the move is permanent. Use 302 (Temporary) redirects only for genuinely temporary situations like A/B tests or maintenance pages, as they don't pass full link equity.
A redirect chain occurs when URL A redirects to URL B which redirects to URL C. Each hop in the chain dilutes link equity, increases page load time and risks Googlebot giving up before reaching the final destination. The SEO impact compounds with chain length — a 3-hop chain can lose 15–25% of link equity. Always redirect directly from the original URL to the final destination URL.
A redirect loop (A→B→A or A→B→C→A) causes browsers and crawlers to enter an infinite cycle and give up with a '302 Too Many Redirects' or '310 Too Many Redirects' error. Users see a blank page or error. Googlebot will eventually stop crawling the affected URLs and they may be de-indexed. This tool detects loops and traces the full redirect chain.
There is no hard limit, but every redirect adds HTTP request overhead (typically 50–300ms per hop). Pages with more than 3 redirect hops experience noticeable load time increases. More importantly, link equity dilution accumulates with each redirect. A site with thousands of redirect chains (common after migrations) will have measurably suppressed rankings across all affected pages.