URL: /rules/crawl/redirect-chain

---
title: "Redirect Chains"
description: "Detects multi-hop redirect chains that waste crawl budget"
---

Detects multi-hop redirect chains that waste crawl budget

| | |
|---|---|
| **Rule ID** | `crawl/redirect-chain` |
| **Category** | [Crawlability](/rules/crawl) |
| **Scope** | Site-wide |
| **Severity** | warning |
| **Weight** | 5/10 |

## Solution

Each redirect hop adds latency and consumes crawl budget. Search engines may stop following after 5+ hops. Consolidate redirect chains to a single hop by updating the source URL to point directly to the final destination. Common causes: HTTP→HTTPS→www→trailing slash combinations, or legacy domain migrations.

## Options

This rule supports the following configuration options:

| Option | Type | Default | Description |
|--------|------|---------|-------------|
| `maxHops` | unknown | `undefined` | Flag redirect chains exceeding this many hops |

### Configuration Example

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules."crawl/redirect-chain"]
maxHops = undefined
```

## Enable / Disable

### Disable this rule

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
disable = ["crawl/redirect-chain"]
```

### Disable all Crawlability rules

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
disable = ["crawl/*"]
```

### Enable only this rule

```toml squirrel.toml
[rules]
enable = ["crawl/redirect-chain"]
disable = ["*"]
```