🔗 URL Redirect Trace

Trace the complete redirect chain for any URL to understand the redirection path.

Enter URL:

💡 Tip: Enter a URL and click "Trace Redirects" to see the redirect path.

Enter a URL and click "Trace Redirects" to view results.

The shape of a chain

Enter a URL and the trace walks it hop by hop to wherever it finally settles, reporting the number of redirects and the total time the whole journey took. The count and the clock are the point here: a destination can be perfectly correct and still be reached badly.

http://example.com          301
https://example.com         301
https://www.example.com     301
https://www.example.com/    200      3 redirects

That chain is the ordinary result of adding HTTPS and a canonical host without revisiting the rules afterwards, and every one of those hops is a full round trip - DNS, connection, TLS handshake, response - before any content begins to arrive. Rewriting the rules so http://example.com jumps straight to the final address turns three trips into one.

What to watch for in the trace

Length. Browsers give up somewhere around twenty hops, but Google's crawler follows about five in a single pass and queues the rest for later, so a long chain slows down how quickly a move is understood.
Loops. Two rules that undo each other - one forcing www, one stripping it - produce a chain that never ends and a page nobody can open.
The protocol at each step. A hop that drops from HTTPS to HTTP mid-chain exposes the request, even if it climbs back afterwards.
Where the parameters go. Redirects that discard the query string break campaign tracking and password reset links in the same stroke.

Shortened and shared links are the interesting case: following one here shows the eventual destination, and the analytics and affiliate hops it passes through on the way, without your browser ever visiting them.

Frequently asked questions

How many redirects is too many?

One is fine, two is tolerable, three or more is worth fixing. The cost is paid by the visitor in latency, and each hop is another chance for a rule to misfire. Aim to have every old URL point at the final destination directly rather than at the URL that replaced it, which then points somewhere else.

Why does my URL redirect twice when I only set up one rule?

Because more than one layer is rewriting. A CDN forcing HTTPS, a host adding or removing www, and a framework appending a trailing slash each add a hop without knowing about the others. The trace shows the order they fire in, which is what tells you which layer to edit.

Where does a shortened link actually go?

Trace it and read the last URL. A shortener answers with a redirect rather than content, so following the chain reveals the destination before you commit to opening it - useful when the link arrived unexpectedly. Note that the resolution alone tells you nothing about whether the destination is safe.