SiteAud!tLint Support

Critical Technical SEO

Redirect loop

Severity
Critical
Impact
High
Effort to fix
Low
Issue code
redirect_loop

Why it matters

The redirect never reaches a final page because it points back to a URL already in the chain. Browsers show an error and search engines give up.

How to fix it

Point the redirect at the correct live page and remove the circular rule.

What this means

Following the redirects from this URL leads back to a URL already visited, so the page can never load. The evidence shows the loop, for example /a to /b to /a. Browsers show "too many redirects" (ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS in Chrome).

Why it matters

The page is completely unreachable for visitors and search engines. If it was indexed, it will drop out. This is critical, and usually affects many URLs at once because it comes from a rule, not a single page.

Common causes

  • Two rules undoing each other: one adds a trailing slash and another removes it, or one forces www and another removes it.
  • HTTPS behind a proxy or CDN. The CDN connects to the server over HTTP, the server redirects to HTTPS, and the CDN passes the request back over HTTP again. Cloudflare's Flexible SSL mode is a classic cause; use Full (strict).
  • Conflicting settings in two places, such as a redirect in the CMS and a different one at the host.
  • Language or region redirects that send a visitor to a version which redirects them back.
  • A canonical domain setting in the CMS that disagrees with the domain the host serves.

How to fix it

  1. Follow the URLs in the evidence and identify which rule produces each hop. Developer tools in the browser, or curl -I on each URL, show the Location header of every step.
  2. Remove or correct the rule that sends the request back. Usually one setting is enough.
  3. Test the main URL variations after the change: http and https, with and without www, and with and without a trailing slash. Each should reach the final URL in one hop.

Verify the fix

Recrawl. The URL should load or end in a single redirect. See also Redirect chain.

How it affects your score

Finding this issue on any page costs the Technical SEO score 8 points, plus up to 25 more depending on the share of crawled pages affected. As a critical issue type it also takes 3 points off overall site health (critical deductions stop at 15 points). Blocks indexing, breaks pages or loses traffic. Fix these first.

Find the affected URLs

Open Crawl > Issues and pick Redirect loop. Each affected URL is listed with its evidence, and Copy URLs or Export URLs hands the list to a developer. The issue also appears in the Action Plan, ranked by impact (high) and effort (low), and in the issues CSV under the code redirect_loop. After fixing, run a new audit and use Compare to confirm the URLs moved to fixed.

Guides that cover this issue