301 redirect
A server-side permanent redirect that tells crawlers a URL has moved for good and that ranking signals should consolidate on the…
TechnicalRedirect hopRedirect loop
Redirect chain
A sequence of two or more redirects between the requested URL and the final destination; each hop adds latency and risks signals being lost.
In full
Google follows a limited number of hops (around five in a single crawl attempt) before giving up and retrying later, so long chains delay indexing. Chains accumulate over successive migrations — http to https, then a URL restructure, then a domain move — and are best collapsed by rewriting rules so every legacy URL points directly at its current destination. A loop, where the chain returns to a previous URL, prevents indexing entirely.
Example
`http://example.com/old` → `https://example.com/old` → `https://www.example.com/old` → `https://www.example.com/new` is collapsed to one hop.
Related terms
Time to First Byte
The interval between a navigation request starting and the first byte of the response arriving; a foundational input to LCP and a signal…
Site migration
Any change to a site's domain, URL structure, platform, template or content organisation that materially affects how search engines see it.
HTTP status codes
Numeric codes in an HTTP response that tell crawlers how to treat a URL: 200 index it, 3xx follow the redirect, 404/410 drop it, 5xx come…
Crawl budget
The number of URLs a search engine is willing and able to crawl on a site in a given period, set by crawl capacity limit and crawl demand.