We withdrew the earlier benchmark scores because the underlying observations were not documented. This evaluation focuses on the redirect chain you can verify yourself.
A final 200 is only the end of the story
For a broken link or migration, you need to know how the request reached its destination. A redirect checker should preserve the input, each response code, each Location value and the final address. A single “working” label hides whether a permanent redirect, temporary redirect or unexpected detour occurred.
Build a small test set
On a test site you control, create a single redirect, a two-hop chain, a relative Location destination and a loop. Record the intended routing before running any tool. Keep the test URLs free of signed parameters or private identifiers.
- Check whether the first response is visible even when the final page succeeds.
- Compare how a relative destination is resolved against the current URL.
- Verify that the loop stops with an explicit limit or error instead of implying success.
- Try HTTP and HTTPS entrypoints separately and preserve the scheme of each hop.
- Recheck a changed rule after caches have had time to update; save both timestamps.
Inspect the first hop and the whole chain
curl --head --max-time 20 'https://example.com/'
curl --head --location --max-redirs 5 --max-time 20 'https://example.com/'These use HEAD. If your application handles HEAD differently from GET, run a GET comparison that discards the body. A tool’s disagreement may come from method choice rather than a redirect parsing bug. Neither request executes JavaScript redirects in a rendered page.
Keep evidence useful for a migration
Record old URL, intended new URL, actual chain and the first unexpected hop. Prioritise the tool that exposes that first mismatch. An overall numerical score is less useful than knowing that a tool can show the exact rule you need to fix.
Our redirect checker can be evaluated with this procedure. WebsiteDown.org operates it; the procedure is not proof that it outperforms another tool. For website failures that continue after the redirect completes, use the website triage guide.