A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to another URL, which in turn redirects to yet another URL, creating a sequence of multiple hops before reaching the final destination. For example, URL A redirects to URL B, which redirects to URL C, which finally serves the content. Each additional hop means one more network round trip, and one more hop the crawler has to follow before it reaches the final page.
Redirect chains commonly arise during site migrations, URL restructuring, or when multiple URL shortening services are layered. Over time, as URLs are updated without cleaning up old redirects, chains can grow to three, four, or more hops. Each additional hop adds network round-trip time and increases the risk of the chain breaking if any intermediate URL becomes unavailable.
Keeping chains short, ideally a single hop from source to destination, avoids these extra round trips. Google Search Central documentation states that Google's crawlers follow up to 10 redirect hops by default, and that the limit may differ for the crawlers of specific products (as of August 2026). Every additional hop is one more request the crawler makes before it reaches the content that is finally served.
To identify and fix redirect chains, use tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or browser developer tools to trace the full redirect path. The fix is straightforward: update each redirect in the chain to point directly to the final destination, eliminating intermediate hops.