HTTP Redirects

01 The Rule

Use 301 for permanent URL changes. Redirect chains must not exceed 2 hops. Every redirect must resolve to a 200 status page. Never redirect to a page that itself redirects.

02 Rationale

Each hop in a redirect chain costs crawl budget and leaks link equity. At scale, redirect chains compound — a migration that introduces 3-hop chains across 500K URLs wastes 1.5M crawl slots. Google follows up to 5 redirects but strongly penalizes chains in crawl priority.

03 Implementation

• Use 301 for permanent moves, 302 only for genuinely temporary changes
• Flatten redirect chains: A→C instead of A→B→C
• Audit redirects after every migration or URL change
• Monitor for new chains introduced by CMS or CDN changes
• Remove internal links that point to redirect URLs

04 Common Violations & Consequences

05 The Fix

Run the 301 Chain Detector tool against your domain. Flatten all chains to single-hop 301s. Update internal links to point directly to final destinations.