Medium issue
Redirect chains slowing crawlers and users
Redirect chains appear when old URL migrations stack on top of each other instead of resolving directly to the final canonical page.
Why it matters
A single redirect can be normal during URL cleanup. Chains are different: they add latency, make canonical signals harder to reason about, and often reveal old migration rules that should have been collapsed.
Common signals
- A URL hops through more than one redirect before reaching the final page.
- HTTP to HTTPS, slash normalization, and slug migration rules all fire in sequence.
- The final destination differs from the page's declared canonical URL.
Stable fix pattern
- Rewrite legacy redirects so old URLs point directly to the final canonical destination.
- Normalize protocol, host, and trailing-slash behavior in one predictable layer.
- Remove obsolete intermediate redirect rules after confirming no active route depends on them.
How SitePulse will monitor this in v1
- Follows redirects up to the configured safety limit.
- Reports the full observed chain so maintainers can collapse it.
- Connects redirect findings with canonical mismatch checks when both appear.