Redirect Checker for Website Moves

Moving a website? Paste up to 25 old addresses with the page each one should land on, plus the redirect rules you plan to use. The checker runs every address through your rules and tells you, in plain English, which redirects work, which loop or chain, and which send visitors somewhere unrelated. It runs in your browser. It does not visit your site, so to test a live address, paste the output of the one-line command shown below.

How it works

  1. List your old addresses, one per line, each followed by the address it should end up at. A comma, a tab or an arrow between them all work. The limit is 25 lines per check.
  2. Paste your redirect rules. The checker reads Apache .htaccess (Redirect, RedirectMatch and RewriteRule with an R flag), Netlify-style _redirects files, vercel.json redirects and simple nginx rewrite and return rules.
  3. Each old address is run through the rules, hop by hop, up to 10 hops. You see the status code of each hop and the final address.
  4. The report flags redirect loops, chains of more than one hop, temporary (302 or 307) redirects, redirects from https down to http, addresses no rule catches, and old pages sent to the homepage instead of a matching page.
  5. Download the results as a CSV to keep as your migration checklist. To test a site that is already live, paste curl output into the second tab; the checker reads the real status codes and Location headers from it.

A redirect map is the heart of any website move

Before switching a site to a new platform or domain, list every address that gets visits or links: the homepage, service and product pages, blog posts and any page people bookmark. Next to each, write the new address that best replaces it. That list is your redirect map, and it is what this checker tests.

Checking the map before launch catches the common mistakes while they are cheap to fix: a rule that swallows too much, two rules that bounce between each other, or a forgotten page that will start returning a 404.

Checking a live site with curl

curl is a command-line program that comes with macOS, Windows 10 and later, and most Linux systems. Running curl -sIL https://example.com/old-page asks the server for that address, follows each redirect and prints the headers of every hop. Paste all of that output into the live chain tab and the checker turns it into the same plain-English report.

Tips

Frequently asked questions

Does this redirect checker visit my website?

No. Browsers do not let one website read another website's redirects, so an honest in-browser tool cannot fetch your old URLs. Instead it runs your addresses through the redirect rules you paste. For a live check, run curl -sIL followed by the address in a terminal and paste the output into the live chain tab; that reads the real answers your server gave.

Which redirect rule formats are supported?

Apache .htaccess Redirect, RedirectPermanent, RedirectMatch and RewriteRule lines with an R flag; Netlify-style _redirects lines; the redirects array in vercel.json, including :param and :path* placeholders; and simple nginx rewrite rules and location = /path { return 301 ...; } blocks. RewriteCond conditions are not simulated, and the report says so when it sees them.

What is a redirect chain and why does it matter?

A chain is when an address redirects to another address that redirects again. Each hop adds a delay for visitors and gives search engines one more step to follow. Point the first address straight at the final one.

301 or 302 for a website move?

301 (or 308) for anything permanent, which is almost every website move. 302 and 307 mean temporary, so search engines may keep the old address in results.

Why is sending old pages to the homepage flagged?

If an old service page lands on the homepage, visitors do not find what they clicked for and search engines often treat it like a missing page. Map it to the closest matching new page instead.

Is anything I paste stored?

No. The addresses and rules stay in your browser tab and are gone when you close it. Nothing is sent to We.Inc.

Related: Website Checker, Meta Tag Generator, DNS Lookup, Website Cost Calculator, Website builder.

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