Redirect chain cleanup

Each hop in a redirect chain costs crawl time and risks the chain breaking somewhere in the middle. Chains accumulate quietly across years of site changes. This skill flattens them without losing any rule.

The skill file

---
name: redirect-chain-cleanup
description: Use after a migration, a domain change, or whenever a crawl reports redirects pointing at other redirects.
---

# Redirect chain cleanup

Each hop in a redirect chain costs crawl time and risks the chain breaking somewhere in the middle. Chains accumulate quietly across years of site changes. This skill flattens them without losing any rule.

## What you need first

- A full crawl including redirect targets
- The current redirect rules from the server or CDN

## Method

1. Export every URL returning 3xx along with its final destination and the number of hops.
2. Flag anything with two or more hops, and anything ending in a 4xx or 5xx - a chain to nowhere is worse than no redirect.
3. Rewrite each multi-hop rule to point directly at the final 200 destination.
4. Check for redirect loops, which serve nothing at all and are usually invisible until someone hits them.
5. Confirm redirect type is correct: 301 for permanent moves, 302 only where the original genuinely returns.
6. Re-crawl and verify every previously-chained URL now resolves in one hop.

## What this produces

A flattened redirect map, plus a list of chains that ended in errors and now need a real destination.

## Where this goes wrong

- Flattening a chain but leaving the intermediate rule in place, so it fires again later
- Using 302 for a permanent move, which withholds consolidation
- Removing an old rule because it looks unused, when it still receives links

---

From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/redirect-chain-cleanup

What you need first

• A full crawl including redirect targets
• The current redirect rules from the server or CDN

Method

1. 01 Export every URL returning 3xx along with its final destination and the number of hops.
2. 02 Flag anything with two or more hops, and anything ending in a 4xx or 5xx - a chain to nowhere is worse than no redirect.
3. 03 Rewrite each multi-hop rule to point directly at the final 200 destination.
4. 04 Check for redirect loops, which serve nothing at all and are usually invisible until someone hits them.
5. 05 Confirm redirect type is correct: 301 for permanent moves, 302 only where the original genuinely returns.
6. 06 Re-crawl and verify every previously-chained URL now resolves in one hop.

What this produces

A flattened redirect map, plus a list of chains that ended in errors and now need a real destination.

Where this goes wrong

• Flattening a chain but leaving the intermediate rule in place, so it fires again later
• Using 302 for a permanent move, which withholds consolidation
• Removing an old rule because it looks unused, when it still receives links

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