What is a redirect?

A redirect is a server's answer that says "this page is somewhere else". The server responds with a 3xx status code and a Location header that holds the new address, and the browser requests that address instead. One redirect can lead to another, so a single link can pass through several URLs, a redirect chain, before it reaches the page. Redirects move sites from HTTP to HTTPS, from www to the bare domain or back, from old URLs to new ones, and through link shorteners and tracking links.

Tool description

The Redirect Checker follows the redirect chain of a URL from our server and shows every hop in a table. Enter a URL, and the tool requests it, reads the status code and Location header, and follows the redirect to the next URL until a page answers without a redirect. For each hop, you see the URL, the status code and message, the IP address that answered, and the response time. The final URL can be copied.

Features

  • Follows 301, 302, 303, 307, and 308 redirects, up to 10 in a row
  • Shows each hop's URL, status, IP address, and response time in a table you can export as CSV or JSON
  • Finds redirect loops, where the chain leads back to a URL it has already visited
  • Reports redirects without a valid Location header, DNS failures, timeouts, and TLS certificate errors on the hop where they happen
  • Relative Location headers are resolved against the current URL, as browsers do
  • Only headers are read: the connection is closed as soon as the status and headers arrive, so page content is never downloaded

Redirect status codes

  • 301 Moved Permanently: the page has moved for good. Search engines pass the old URL's ranking to the new one.
  • 302 Found: a temporary redirect. The original URL stays the one search engines index.
  • 303 See Other: points to a different resource, usually after a form is sent.
  • 307 Temporary Redirect: like 302, but the request method and body must stay the same.
  • 308 Permanent Redirect: like 301, but the request method and body must stay the same.

Safety and limits

  • Only http and https URLs on ports 80, 443, 8080, and 8443 are requested.
  • Every hop is checked before it is requested. Addresses on private networks, the local machine, and reserved ranges are blocked, including domains that resolve to such addresses, so a redirect can't reach internal services.
  • Each hop has 5 seconds to answer, and the whole chain has 20 seconds.
  • Cookies are not stored or sent. Sites that set a cookie and redirect back to the same URL show up as a redirect loop, even though a browser would get through.
  • Redirects made with JavaScript or a <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tag are not followed, because they live in the page content, which the tool doesn't download.
  • The requests come from our server, so sites that redirect by country or device can send you somewhere else than this tool sees.