How many hops Googlebot follows
Googlebot follows up to 10 redirect hops in a chain by default, but individual Google products can use different limits. On the way, Google ignores any content served by the redirecting URLs and processes only the content of the final target URL.
Two Google tools treat chains differently:
Crawl Stats. In the Crawl Stats report every hop of a server-side redirect chain counts as a separate crawl request.
Inspection Tools. Google's Inspection Tools crawler does not follow redirects, unlike the URL Inspection live test (see Finding a chain).
A 5-hop figure still circulates. It matches an older HTTP specification (RFC 2068) that recommended a maximum of five redirections, and RFC 9110 warns that some clients may still use such a fixed limit.
What a chain costs and when it becomes a loop
When a chain cannot be avoided, Google recommends ideally no more than 3 redirects and fewer than 5. Each extra redirect adds latency for users, and Google notes that not all browsers and user agents support long chains. MDN advises keeping redirects to a minimum because every redirect has a performance cost. Redirect latency feeds into page speed and SEO.
When you plan a website migration, point old redirects at the new final URLs instead of adding one more hop.
Redirect loops
A redirect loop is a chain that never ends, so no page is ever reached. The HTTP standard says a client should detect and stop cyclical redirection loops. If a server detects a redirect loop, it usually responds with a 500 Internal Server Error. A loop can span several servers that each see only their own hop, so the browser is the one that detects it and shows an error.
Finding a chain
Page indexing report. The Search Console Page indexing report shows a 'Redirect error' status when Google meets a redirect chain that was too long or a redirect loop. Other causes are a redirect URL that exceeded the maximum URL length and a bad or empty URL in the chain.
URL Inspection. The live test follows redirects and tests the target, but it does not say that a redirect happened or which URL it finally tested. The report on the indexed version does show redirections.
Lighthouse. For more detail on a redirect error, Google suggests a web debugging tool such as Lighthouse.
Finding every redirect source before cutover
Before cutover, Pagepro lists every redirect source on the old CMS. WordPress has a hidden one: implicit prefix-fallback routing, which can serve a bare slug such as /accounting from /services/accounting. This source belongs on the list for any WordPress migration.
Sources
- Site Moves and MigrationsGoogle · developers.google.com
- How HTTP status codes, and network and DNS errors affect Google SearchGoogle · developers.google.com
- Crawl Stats report - Search Console HelpGoogle · support.google.com
- RFC 9110: HTTP SemanticsIETF · rfc-editor.org
- Redirections in HTTPMDN · developer.mozilla.org
- Page indexing report - Search Console HelpGoogle · support.google.com
- URL Inspection Tool - Search Console HelpGoogle · support.google.com