What is a redirect chain?
A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to a second URL, which redirects to a third (and so on), rather than pointing directly to the final destination. Common causes: repeated site migrations, CMS URL slug changes, and campaigns that were never cleaned up.
How to find and fix redirect chains
Redirect chains have two main costs. First, each additional hop loses a small amount of link equity — a chain of three 301s passes less value than a single 301 direct to destination. Second, each hop adds latency; a chain of three redirects on mobile can add 300-500ms to the page load before the browser even starts fetching the final page.
Identifying chains requires crawling your site with a tool (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit) and checking for redirect_chain issues. The fix is straightforward: update the source redirect to point directly to the final destination URL.
Example
Example
A company runs a campaign in 2022 at /campaign-2022 → /new-site/campaign-2022 (post-migration) → /offers/2022-promo (after restructure). That is a chain of two hops. Updating /campaign-2022 to point directly to /offers/2022-promo collapses it to one redirect.
Frequently asked questions
How many redirect hops will Google follow?
Googlebot follows up to 10 hops, but equity and crawl efficiency degrade with each one. Anything beyond a single hop is worth collapsing; chains of three or more are a priority fix.
How do I detect redirect chains on my site?
Crawl the site with a tool like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit and review the redirect chain report, or test critical URLs individually with a redirect checker. Fix by pointing each source directly at the final destination.