Why redirect chains matter
Every hop in a redirect chain costs: crawl budget, latency, and a small fraction of link equity. Google has publicly said it will follow up to 5 redirects in one pass; if the chain is longer, Googlebot defers and returns later, so a 6-hop chain can take multiple crawl rounds to index.
For users, every hop adds a round-trip — typically 50–200 ms per hop. A four-hop chain on a slow connection can push TTFB over 1 second on its own, independent of any server-side work. That shows up as a Core Web Vitals regression.
Redirect types at a glance
| Code | Name | Use for |
|---|---|---|
| 301 | Moved Permanently | Permanent URL change. Passes link equity. Browser and search engine cache aggressively. |
| 302 | Found (Temporary) | Temporary redirect. Google treats as not-permanent — passes signals but keeps the old URL in consideration. |
| 303 | See Other | Used after a POST to redirect to a GET. Method changes from POST to GET on the next hop. |
| 307 | Temporary (Preserve Method) | Like 302, but the HTTP method is preserved. Rarely used in web workflows. |
| 308 | Permanent (Preserve Method) | Like 301, but the HTTP method is preserved. Useful for non-GET APIs. |
| Meta refresh | HTML-level redirect | A <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tag. Slower, not cached by browsers, and treated by Google as a weaker signal than HTTP redirects. Avoid in favour of 301. |
Common redirect problems
Long redirect chains
http://example.com → https://example.com → https://www.example.com → https://www.example.com/home/. Each hop is avoidable. Configure the canonical origin at the edge so the first redirect is direct to the final URL.
Redirect loops
A URL that eventually redirects back to itself. Browsers and crawlers stop following and return an error; the page is effectively unreachable. Usually caused by misconfigured rewrite rules or conflicting HTTPS/www canonicalisation.
302 used where 301 belongs
A temporary redirect applied to a permanent URL change keeps the old URL indexed indefinitely. If you meant to permanently move the URL, use 301. If you meant to redirect temporarily but preserve the original indexing, 302 is correct.
Meta refresh in place of HTTP redirect
Meta refresh requires the page to render before the redirect fires, so users see a flash of unrelated content. Search engines treat it as a weaker signal than a real HTTP redirect. Replace with a server-level 301 whenever possible.
Related pages
See the full technical SEO issue library · most common technical SEO mistakes · canonical tag glossary.