This translation has not been editorially reviewed yet. The German version is authoritative. Deutsche Fassung

Indexing

How many redirects can a web address handle?

Ideally none at all: an address should respond directly, with no detour whatsoever. Every redirect costs load time and a share of the effort Google puts into your website — and long chains eventually break. The "Indexing" audit area follows every redirect step by step, counts the hops, and also detects loops, where addresses point to each other in a circle.

A redirect is a mail forwarding order

When a shop moves, a mail forwarding order makes sure post finds its way from the old address to the new one. On the web, the redirect handles this: anyone visiting the old address automatically lands at the new one. That's sensible on its own. It becomes a problem when forwarding orders stack up — the old address redirects to a second, which redirects to a third, and somewhere in between, a target no longer exists. Every hop costs load time, and with every station, the risk of the chain breaking rises. After several website redesigns, chains like this arise almost by themselves if nobody cleans them up.

How the check assesses the hops

Full marks go to an address that responds directly. A single redirect — from the no-www spelling to the www spelling, say — counts as a minor shortcoming and costs some of the points: 6 instead of 10. From two hops onward, this rule awards no points at all, since the chain is then unnecessarily long. The check logs every station along the way with its status code, so the route stays traceable. If two addresses point to each other in a circle, it recognises that as a loop — a case where the request never arrives at any target at all.

Crawl budget explained simply

Google doesn't visit your website an unlimited number of times — it invests a certain amount of effort, called crawl budget in the jargon. Every redirect uses up part of that with no new content being read: the visit gets spent on passing the request along. That's why internal links and the sitemap should always point directly to the final address. This is one of the simplest improvements there is: no new content, no new design, just consistently linking the right address. The effect: faster pages for visitors and more content read per Google visit.

Click through your own menu and watch the address bar: if the address changes again after the click, there's a redirect in between.
Have internal links and the sitemap point directly to the final address, not an old version.
Check after a relaunch whether old addresses reach the new target in a single step — not via multiple stations.
Decide on one spelling of your domain (with or without www) and use it consistently everywhere.

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FAQ

Is a single redirect a problem?

No, a single redirect is manageable and often unavoidable — when the no-www spelling redirects to the www spelling, say. In the check, it only costs a small deduction. What's problematic is chains of several hops: they slow down every request and break more easily.

What is a redirect loop?

In a loop, addresses point to each other in a circle: A redirects to B, B redirects back to A. The request never arrives at a target. Browsers eventually give up with an error message, and search engines can't add the page. The check detects loops by remembering every station it has visited.

What is crawl budget?

Crawl budget refers to the effort a search engine spends visiting your website. It's limited: the more of it flows into redirects and error pages, the less of your real content gets read and updated. Direct addresses make sure the effort reaches your content.

Where do long redirect chains come from?

Usually from a website's history: first came the switch to https, then a relaunch with new addresses, later another redesign. Every stage added its own redirect, and nobody cleaned up the old ones. The fix: consolidate all rules so every old address arrives at the final target in a single step.