Reading a Redirect Chain Map

One hop is healthy, many are not

A single redirect from an old URL to a new one is clean and expected. Problems start when a redirect points to another redirect, forming a chain that slows every visit and leaks value at each step.

The map shows the hops

A redirect chain map lays out each step from the starting URL to the final destination. Reading it, you can see exactly where a link that should be one hop has become three.

Flatten to a single hop

The fix is to repoint the original link straight to the final destination, removing the intermediate hops. Flattening chains speeds up your site and preserves the value that each extra step was quietly draining.

Watch for loops

The map also reveals loops, where redirects point back to each other and trap the visitor entirely. These are outright errors and must be broken, since the page is otherwise unreachable.