Redirect Checker

Where does this link go?

Paste the link above. We list every hop in order, with its address, its status code and how long it took. The last hop is where the link lands.

Some hops we read from the link itself without visiting them, such as the real address inside a Google or Facebook link. Those are marked "decoded, not visited".

Redirect types

What each hop keeps and drops

A link can lose parts on the way. A plugin or a http to https redirect can strip everything after the ?. That drops affiliate tags and campaign labels with it.

For every hop we compare the parts of the link with the hop before. You see what was kept, what was added, what changed and what was dropped. A dropped affiliate ID is marked in red.

How we follow a link

• One request per hop, with no retries.
• Up to 10 hops, and no more than 10 seconds in total.
• We do not run JavaScript.
• For large merchants such as Amazon and AliExpress, we stop at the merchant's first page.
• We follow the link from our server. A visitor in another country or on a phone may be sent somewhere else.

Checking a link you do not trust

Before we visit a link, we look it up in Google Web Risk, a list of known malware and phishing sites. We also look up every address we decode from inside it.

If the link is listed, we do not visit it. The result says which list it is on, such as phishing or malware.

If it is not listed, the result reads "Not on known threat lists". The list only knows the links people have reported. New phishing links appear every day, so a link that is not listed can still be harmful.

We visit the link from our server, so checking it here does not open it on your device. We never show a link you paste as something you can click. The only exception is the final address of a link that is not on the threat list.

What to do with a suspicious link

• Do not open it, and do not enter a password or card details on the page it leads to.
• If the message claims to be from your bank, a shop or a delivery company, go to their site by typing the address yourself.
• Report phishing links to Google at safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish.
• If you already entered a password, change it on the real site and turn on two-step sign-in.

Common questions

How do I see where a link goes without clicking it?

Paste it in the box at the top of this page. We follow it from our server and show every hop and the final address.

What is the difference between a 301 and a 302 redirect?

A 301 says the page has moved for good, so browsers and search engines remember the new address. A 302 says the move is temporary. Short links and affiliate links usually use 302 so the destination can change later.

Why does the link go somewhere else in my browser?

Some links send people to different places by country, device or language, and some use scripts we do not run. Your browser may also have cookies that change where a site sends you.

How many redirects is too many?

Each hop adds time before the page loads. For your own links, more than two or three hops is worth fixing. We stop at 10.

Can you tell me if a link is harmful?

We can tell you if it is on Google Web Risk's list of known malware and phishing sites, and we do not visit it if it is. A link missing from the list may still be harmful, because the list only knows what has been reported.

Does checking a link count as a click?

It can. Short link and affiliate services count each visit, and our check is one visit. We reuse the result for an hour so the same link is not visited twice.