What Is a Redirect Chain?
A redirect chain occurs when a browser or search engine crawler follows a series of two or more redirects before arriving at the final destination URL. For example, URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C, which is the actual page. Each step in that sequence is one "hop," and each hop adds latency and a potential loss of link equity.
Redirect chains most commonly appear on websites that have undergone multiple redesigns, domain migrations, or platform changes over the years. Each migration may have set up its own layer of redirects on top of the previous layer, creating a historical stack that grows with each change. A site that migrated from HTTP to HTTPS, then changed URL structure, then moved to a new domain, might have three-hop chains affecting hundreds of URLs.
From an SEO perspective, Google has stated that link equity does transfer through redirect chains, but the signal diminishes with each hop. More practically, long chains increase page load time because each redirect requires an additional HTTP request-response cycle. On a country like South Africa where mobile connections can vary significantly outside major urban centres like Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town, this latency has a measurable impact on user experience and Core Web Vitals.
Google's crawler also has a finite crawl budget per site. If Googlebot has to follow long redirect chains across many URLs, it may exhaust its budget before reaching the destination pages, meaning those pages are crawled less frequently or skipped entirely.
Redirect Chain In Practice
A Gauteng-based retailer who relaunched their website twice over five years might discover, during an SEO audit, that product pages have three-hop chains: the old product URL redirects to a category-level redirect from the first redesign, which then redirects to the current product URL. Every backlink pointing to the original URL is passing equity through two intermediate hops before it reaches the live page.
The fix is straightforward: update the redirect rules so every legacy URL points directly to its final destination in a single hop. This is called "flattening" the redirect chain. After flattening, any backlinks or bookmarks pointing to the old URLs still work for visitors, but Googlebot reaches the destination in a single request, reducing crawl time and preserving link equity more efficiently.
Internal links should also be updated to point directly to the final URL rather than to an intermediate URL that itself redirects. Allowing internal links to chain through redirects wastes crawl budget on pages that could have been reached in one step.
What a redirect chain is
A redirect chain is a sequence of more than one redirect between the URL a user or crawler requests and the final destination page, for example, URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C, which finally serves the page. Instead of a single, direct redirect from the requested URL to the destination, the request hops through several intermediate URLs before arriving. Redirect chains typically accumulate over time as a site changes: an old URL was redirected to a new one, then that new one was later moved and redirected again, and so on, leaving a chain rather than direct redirects to the current page. Redirect chains are undesirable for a few reasons. They slow things down, since each redirect in the chain adds a round-trip and delay before the page loads, harming page speed and user experience. They can dilute or risk the SEO value passed through the redirects, as long chains are less efficient and, if any link in the chain breaks, the whole path fails. And they consume crawl budget and can confuse or be incompletely followed by crawlers, especially if chains are long. Understanding redirect chains matters because they are a common, often-overlooked technical-SEO issue that harms speed and can undermine the ranking value and reliability of redirects, and they are usually straightforward to fix once found.
Finding and fixing redirect chains
Fixing redirect chains means finding them and then collapsing each chain so that the originally-requested URL redirects directly to the final destination in a single hop. Redirect chains are identified using SEO crawling and audit tools, which crawl the site and report URLs that redirect through multiple steps, and by checking key redirected URLs to see how many hops they take. Once a chain is found, the fix is to update the redirects so the first URL points straight to the final URL, removing the intermediate hops, so URL A goes directly to URL C rather than via B. This restores a single, direct redirect, eliminating the added delays and inefficiency and reducing the risk of a broken link in the chain. Alongside fixing chains, it is good practice to update internal links to point directly at the final destination URLs rather than at old URLs that redirect, since linking straight to the current URL avoids sending users and crawlers through any redirect at all, which is even better than a clean single redirect. Regular technical audits catch chains as they accumulate through site changes, so periodic checking and tidying keeps redirects clean. For a South African website that has been through redesigns, migrations or URL changes over the years, checking for and collapsing redirect chains, and updating internal links to final URLs, is a worthwhile technical-SEO housekeeping task that improves speed and preserves the ranking value and reliability of the site's redirects.
FAQ
How many redirects are too many in a chain?
Google recommends avoiding chains longer than five hops, and ideally you should point directly to the final destination URL. Each hop adds latency, and Googlebot may stop following a chain if it becomes too long, leaving the destination page uncrawled and unindexed.
How do I fix a redirect chain on my South African website?
Audit your redirects using a tool like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console. Update each intermediate redirect to point directly to the final destination URL in a single hop. Also update any internal links that still reference the old intermediate URLs.
How do you fix a redirect chain?
Find chains using an SEO crawling or audit tool that reports multi-hop redirects, then update the redirects so the originally-requested URL points straight to the final destination in one hop, removing the intermediate steps. Also update internal links to point directly at the final URLs rather than at old redirecting ones, so users and crawlers avoid the redirect entirely. Periodic audits catch new chains as they accumulate.