How to Audit Your Website Redirects: 7 Practical Techniques

Redirects are essential for maintaining the health of your website, particularly when you move content, change URLs, or restructure your site. However, poorly managed redirects can negatively affect user experience and SEO performance. Conducting a redirect audit ensures your site runs smoothly and search engines can properly crawl and index your pages. Below are seven practical techniques suggested by Search Studio, a boutique SEO agency in Thailand, to help you audit your website redirects effectively.

1. Use Crawling Tools to Identify Redirects

The first step in auditing your website redirects is to use a crawling tool. Tools like Screaming Frog, SEMrush, or Ahrefs can scan your site and generate a comprehensive list of all the URLs, including those with redirects.

• What to look for: Identify 301, 302, and other types of redirects.
• Why it matters: Crawling tools give you a full picture of how redirects are set up across your site. They help identify unnecessary or broken redirects that could slow down your site and affect SEO.

Pro tip: Ensure the crawling tool is set to follow all redirects, so nothing gets missed during the audit.

2. Check for Redirect Chains

Redirect chains occur when one URL redirects to another, which then redirects to yet another. These chains can slow down page loading times and confuse search engines, potentially hurting your rankings.

• How to check: Use the same crawling tools mentioned earlier, or specific features in tools like Screaming Frog to identify multiple redirects between the original URL and the final destination.
• Action step: Replace redirect chains with direct links from the first URL to the final destination.

Pro tip: Aim to have only one redirect per URL to avoid unnecessary delays.

3. Analyze Redirect Loops

Redirect loops occur when a URL redirects back to itself or creates a circular loop involving two or more pages. These loops prevent users and search engines from accessing your content and can cause severe usability and SEO issues.

• How to identify: Crawling tools will flag redirect loops, making them easy to find.
• Fixing the issue: Break the loop by updating the redirect to point to the correct final URL.

Pro tip: Always test your redirects after making changes to ensure the loops are fixed.

4. Ensure Proper Use of 301 and 302 Redirects

A 301 redirect is permanent and tells search engines to transfer the link equity from the old URL to the new one. A 302 redirect is temporary and indicates that the original URL might return.

• Audit process: Use your crawling tool to identify which type of redirect is being used on each URL.
  

  

• Action step: Ensure 301 redirects are used for permanent changes, such as moved content, while 302 redirects should only be used for temporary changes.

Pro tip: Incorrect use of 302 redirects instead of 301s can lead to a loss of link equity, which may impact your search rankings.

5. Test Mobile and Desktop Redirects

Redirects should work seamlessly across all devices. Sometimes, mobile-specific URLs may have different redirect paths than desktop URLs, which can cause issues for mobile users.

• How to test: Use tools like Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or inspect your site manually to ensure that redirects are functioning correctly on both mobile and desktop versions.
• What to do: Make sure that both mobile and desktop redirects are correctly configured to point to the right final URLs.

Pro tip: Avoid setting up separate redirect paths for mobile users unless absolutely necessary.

6. Analysis  HTTPS Redirects

If your site has moved from HTTP to HTTPS, it’s important to verify that all HTTP URLs are correctly redirecting to their HTTPS counterparts. Failing to do so can cause security warnings and lead to a drop in rankings.

• How to audit: Crawl your site with a focus on identifying any remaining HTTP URLs. Screaming Frog and Ahrefs are helpful tools here.
  

  

• How to fix: Ensure all HTTP versions of your pages are set to 301 redirect to their HTTPS versions.

Pro tip: Use an SSL checker to verify that your HTTPS certificates are up to date and properly configured.

7. Check for Broken Redirects

Broken redirects occur when a redirect points to a non-existent page, leading to a 404 error. These broken links can frustrate users and lead to a loss of trust in your site.

• How to identify: Your crawling tool will flag any 404 errors caused by redirects.
• Action step: Fix broken redirects by either updating the destination URL or removing the redirect entirely if no longer needed.

Pro tip: Periodically run checks for broken redirects, especially after major site changes or content updates.

Conclusion

Auditing your website redirects is a crucial part of maintaining good SEO health and ensuring a smooth user experience. By following these seven practical techniques—using crawling tools, checking for redirect chains and loops, verifying proper redirect types, and ensuring smooth mobile and HTTPS redirects—you can avoid common pitfalls and keep your site running efficiently. Regular audits will help ensure that redirects work as intended, preserving both your website’s usability and its search engine rankings.