Redirect Mapper (301/302)

Paste your redirect rules and instantly detect loops, chains, mixed 301/302 usage and orphaned redirects. All analysis runs in your browser.

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Redirect Health

Issues Found

Why Redirect Quality Matters

Every redirect adds latency, adds a request the browser must make, and — most importantly for SEO — leaks link equity if it is a 302 instead of a 301. Google treats a 301 as "this resource has permanently moved" and passes full authority. A 302 says "temporary" and passes minimal authority.

When to Use 301 vs 302

  • 301 (Moved Permanently) — page has moved for good. Use for CMS migrations, URL restructuring, HTTP→HTTPS, non-www→www, deleted content pointing to a replacement. This is the default choice.
  • 302 (Found / Moved Temporarily) — content is coming back. Use for maintenance pages, A/B tests, geo-redirects during a launch. Never leave a 302 in place for more than a few weeks.
  • 307/308 — modern equivalents that preserve the HTTP method. Use 308 as a 301 replacement in APIs.

Chains vs Loops

A chain is a redirect that lands on another redirect (A → B → C). Each hop costs crawl budget and dilutes signals. Google will follow up to 5 hops before giving up. Chains beyond 2 hops should be flattened at the source.

A loop is A → B → A. The crawler will give up after a few attempts and treat the original URL as a soft 404. Loops are catastrophic and can deindex whole URL sections.

The Flattening Rule

When you change a redirect target, update the source redirect to point directly at the final destination. The rule: never make a redirect point to a URL that is itself redirected. This is how chains accumulate over years of site changes.

Common Mistakes

  • 302 used for permanent moves. Tools like CMS plugins sometimes default to 302. Always force 301 in production.
  • Redirecting to the homepage. Mass-redirecting deleted pages to / causes Google to treat them as soft 404s. Redirect to the most relevant replacement page.
  • Missing trailing-slash consistency. If /old 301s to /new but /new/ also exists, you now have two URLs. Pick one convention.
  • HTTP → HTTPS chains. A http:// URL that 301s to http://www. that 301s to https://www. is a two-hop chain on every single URL. Collapse to a single https:// hop.
  • Redirects in robots.txt instead of server. robots.txt has no redirect mechanism. Always implement redirects at the server or CDN layer.

Audit Workflow

  1. Export all redirect rules from your server, CDN or CMS.
  2. Paste them above and flag every 302 as needing review.
  3. Flatten any chains to a single hop.
  4. Confirm every redirect target returns 200 OK.
  5. Re-crawl the site and verify no orphaned redirect rules remain (redirect from a URL that no longer exists anywhere).

Redirect Mapper FAQ

What is the difference between 301 and 302 for SEO?

A 301 tells Google the move is permanent and passes nearly all link equity. A 302 says the move is temporary and passes very little. Use 301 for all permanent URL changes.

How long can I leave a 302 in place?

A few weeks for a genuine temporary situation. Beyond that, Google may start treating the 302 as permanent, but you lose the ranking signal transfer that a 301 provides.

What happens if I have a redirect loop?

The browser and Googlebot will eventually give up (usually after 20 hops) and show a browser error. Google treats the URL as a soft 404 and can drop it from the index. Fix immediately.

Do redirects pass PageRank?

Yes — a 301 passes essentially all PageRank and link signals. A chain of 301s dilutes the signal slightly at each hop, which is why you should always flatten.