How to Fix Pages With Redirect Chains and Loops
How to Fix Pages With Redirect Chains and Loops This issue has to do with redirects whether they’re temporary redirects or permanent redirects. The problem here is that you’re using multiple redirects in combination with each other.
So for example, a user might go from page A and try to be getting to page B, but they are redirected to page C and then they’re redirected to page D and then they’re redirected may be to page F, and then finally they’re redirected to page B––that would be a redirect chain.
A loop would be a situation where they are just redirected from A to B, to B to C, to C to B, to B to A, and it would never end.
Both of these are issues. The loop’s issue is probably more so because it would frustrate your users and the page would never load and they’d see an error message. But regardless you want to fix either one of these.
If you have this issue, go ahead and click through any of the two for more details and each row will show you more information.
Similar to the permanent and temporary redirects issue. You’ll find the URL where the link is located in the first column.
The second URL will be where the link is going. And then the third column is the final destination URL or what the final destination you are all should be in this case.
This is a loop. And you can see in the fourth column, it says loop of URLs.
While it says that there are seven loops, a loop would be indefinite actually so it’s just going to say seven-plus.
What you need to do here is find where it says loop of URLs then look for a little down arrow. If you click on that, it will show you what’s happening.
In this case, we have users going from the demo homepage. They are linking to a featured projects page, and then that page redirects to an SEO page. And then that redirects back to the featured projects, back to the SEO, back to the featured product, and so on.
So you see, this never answers where it is going and it will just continue going in a loop. What you need to do is figure out where you want these people to be going.
If somebody is trying to get to the featured projects page, where do you want them to end up, is there a feature projects page?
If so, you need to go ahead and remove that redirect. Is there another page where they should be going in that case?
You need to go into this page in WordPress and find that link going to this URL and adjust it. Change that link directly in WordPress.
You don’t need to remove the redirect, because that will help people who are trying to get your site to your website from some other place.
If they try to come directly into this page, those users still need to be redirected to the appropriate page, but for users trying to navigate the site internally, you just want to send them from this page (the homepage) directly to where you want them to end up. Don’t rely on redirects.
So that’s the loop. As for the chain, it would be similar.
A chain would look like this: If somebody is trying to go from the homepage to the featured projects, they might then be forwarded to the SEO.
They might then be forwarded to another page and then forwarded to perhaps where you want them to go. So it would work from a user standpoint.
They would get to the page where you want them to end up and where they want to be. So it would work, but you’re just relying too much on these redirects and Google doesn’t like that.
It likes things to be efficient. So, in that case, you would do the same thing.
You would go to the page where this URL is located and that would be this demo homepage. Then, you would find the link here that begins that redirect chain, and you would go directly to WordPress into the editor and change that link and adjust it so that it sends people where they want.
Now if you have a redirect chain and it’s completely not necessary (and it usually is not), you can check out my video on “How to Create Redirects” and that will show you the best ways to do it.
You can also use plugins but I recommend using the HT access file just because using plugins for redirects often leads to problems down the road.
If you allow redirects to stay in a plugin for a long time, there are lots of ways that can go wrong.
So I do recommend checking out that video, look to see how to update your redirects in the HT access file, and take care of them there.
But if you prefer to use the process that I just described and go into the pages in your first column, and then manually adjust the links to go to the pages where you want those users to end up, that will get rid of this issue in SEMrush.