Reading the chain
- 301 and 308 are permanent: search engines move signals to the destination. 302, 303 and 307 are temporary.
- Each extra hop adds a round trip and some risk; link to the final URL and make the first redirect go straight there.
- Loops and more than 10 hops are stopped and reported. A <meta http-equiv="refresh"> on the final page is flagged as a slower client-side redirect.
Checking the four versions
http://example.com, http://www.example.com, https://example.com and https://www.example.com should all end on one URL. When they don't, the same page exists under several addresses.
Frequently asked questions
301 or 302 for a moved page?
301 (or 308) when the move is permanent. Use 302 or 307 only when the original URL will come back.
Does a redirect lose ranking signals?
Google says 301, 302 and 307/308 redirects pass signals. Long chains are still slower for users and crawlers.