Redirect chains are silently killing your PageRank
What they are, how to find them, and how to fix them in under an hour
“Every hop in a redirect chain leaks PageRank. A three-hop chain can cost you 15% of a page's authority.”
A redirect chain looks like this:
yoursite.com/old-page → yoursite.com/redirect-1 → yoursite.com/final-page
Each redirect hop leaks a small amount of PageRank. A two-hop chain loses roughly 10–15%. A three-hop chain can lose 20–25%. Multiply that across dozens of pages and you have a meaningful, invisible drag on your rankings.
How redirect chains happen: Most commonly: you redirect a URL, then later redirect the destination again. The original redirect isn't updated to point directly to the final destination.
How to find them: Run your site through a crawler like Screaming Frog, or use RankyPulse's audit. Look for any 301 that leads to another 301.
How to fix them: Update the first redirect to point directly to the final destination. yoursite.com/old-page → yoursite.com/final-page (direct, one hop)
The rule: every redirect should resolve in a single hop. No exceptions.
Bonus: check your homepage The most common redirect chain on the internet: http://yoursite.com → https://yoursite.com → https://www.yoursite.com
If your homepage requires two hops to reach the canonical version, fix that first. It affects every single page on your site.