Last Updated on June 6, 2025 by Admin
If you have seen a redirect error in Google Search Console, it means that Googlebot failed to follow a redirect on your website. Such errors can waste crawl budget and hurt website SEO. Let’s identify the source of this error message “Redirect error,” and then try to eliminate them to achieve optimal website performance.
Understanding the “Redirect error”
The redirect error in Google Search Console occurs when a configured redirect fails. Googlebot gets a 3xx redirect response code from the server. when tries to crawl the redirect and couldn’t crawl the final URL. Although sometimes its from search engine’s ends, but most of the “Redirect error” cases come from internal website end due to errors in redirection.
Causes for Redirection Error
The redirect error in Google Search Console suggests that Google faced some problems following the redirect on your website. This may be due to several common reasons.
- Redirect Chains: The problem “Redirect error” is frequently caused by the redirect chain. This happens when the scrolling spans through too many redirects from the first URL to the last one. Google can take care of up to five redirections in a chain. Nevertheless, experts suggest reducing their number to the lowest possible. Google may be unable to follow all such redirects if it finds the count too high, resulting in the “Redirect error.”
- Redirect Loops: Redirect Loop is another prevalent cause of this “Redirect error” error. This happens when the first URL is redirected to another URL, and this second URL is redirected to the first URL, which is like a never-ending loop. Consequently, this cycle does not provide sitemaps for crawler bots or users.
- Issues with Redirect URLs: The “Redirect error” may also occur if problems are related to URLs. Some common issues include incorrectly formatted URLs, long URLs containing too many characters and the final URLs that do not return a wrong code rather than a 200 indicate that the page is working right.
How to Fix the “Redirect error” in Google Search Console?
Here is a step-by-step guide to fix redirect error in Google Search Console
- Audit Affected Pages: To fix the “Redirect error,” the first thing to do is to analyze the pages involved. Observe the list of the pages with the error in the Page indexing report in Google Search Console. Seek patterns and common problems among these URLs. Ensure no pages are tagged as the “Redirect error” in your sitemap. This will enable you to appreciate the problem’s magnitude and find probable reasons.
- Identify and Correct Redirect Chains and Loops: After this, you need to correct any redirect chains or loops on your site. Too many redirection URLs may lead to endless redirects or going around in circles. A redirect loop deals with a URL directing to another URL, which in turn directs to the first URL that is directed to it in the first place, thus creating an infinite loop.
- Plan Your Redirects: To keep your redirects organized and avoid future errors. Develop a spreadsheet that provides the original URLs and the URLs you need them to redirect to. Establish redirects in accordance with your plan, and verify that the ending URLs issue a 200 HTTP status code (which shows that the page is functioning properly). Change the links within your site to lie directly to the final URLs. Always use canonical tags to indicate which version of the page you would like the search engines to use.
- Test and Confirm Your Changes: After you’ve made your changes, it’s essential to check and test them to fix redirect error in Google Search Console. Check the Page Google indexing report in Google Search Console to ensure the “Redirect error” is no longer present. For small websites, redirect tests should be done manually using a browser extension such as Link Redirect Trace, and for large websites a full crawl with a tool required to ensure all redirects function as required.
Conclusion
Fixing the redirect error in Google Search Console is essential for the overall health of your SEO and a good user experience. If you are unsure how to solve redirection errors on your site, contact a reliable digital marketing agency, AlgoSaga. Their team of professionals can help you understand the complexities of technical SEO and make arrangements to ensure that your website is optimized for success.