A redirect is an instruction — returned by the server as an HTTP response or triggered in the browser — that forwards a request from one URL to another, so the visitor and search crawler end up at a different address than the one first requested.
| Term | Redirect |
|---|---|
| Category | Page Structure and Technical SEO |
| Also known as | HTTP Redirect |
| Where it appears | URL and technical factors |
What it means in RankGear
Under URL and technical factors, RankGear looks at what happens when it requests the URL you gave it. If that address does not serve content directly but hands the request off to another location, RankGear records the redirect and follows the chain to the page that actually responds. The final destination — not the address you typed — is what gets fetched, rendered, and compared against the ranking pages, so knowing a redirect sits in the path explains why the analyzed URL and the submitted URL may differ.
How to interpret it
Look past the mere fact that a redirect exists and check how it is implemented. A permanent redirect (301 or 308) tells crawlers the move is settled and consolidates signals on the destination; a temporary one (302 or 307) says the original may return, so equity is treated differently. Confirm the request lands on the intended, indexable canonical in a single hop — each extra hop in a chain adds latency and another point where the signal can leak or break. Redirects fired by client-side JavaScript or a meta refresh are slower and less reliable for crawlers to resolve than a clean server response.
| Type | What it signals |
|---|---|
| 301 / 308 | Permanent move; consolidate the destination as canonical |
| 302 / 307 | Temporary; original address is expected to return |
| Meta refresh / JavaScript | Client-side hop; slower and less certain for crawlers |
Example
You submit example.com/services to RankGear, but the server returns a 301 pointing to example.com/services/, which in turn 301s to www.example.com/services/. RankGear follows both hops, analyzes the final trailing-slash www page, and you can see that a two-step chain sits between the requested URL and the page that is really being measured — a candidate to collapse into a single redirect.
Important considerations
- A redirect being present, and correctly implemented, does not by itself lift rankings — it is a routing and hygiene signal, not a score. Reading it as something that “makes a page rank” confuses correlation with causation.
- Chains and loops waste crawl budget and add load time; aim for a single hop to the final canonical.
- Temporary redirects left in place long-term can hold signals on the wrong URL — match the redirect type to your actual intent.
- The destination must be indexable; redirecting to a blocked, noindexed, or 404 page defeats the purpose.
Related terms
Part of the RankGear glossary · how RankGear measures · the 870 factors.