Why You Should Stay Below 5 Hops In A 301 Redirect Chain
John Mueller of Google advised website owners and SEO experts to aim for under five hops in a 301 redirect chain for URLs. A redirect chain is when you string several 301s together to move between redirects and land on a destination URL. Each redirect in this chain is called a “hop”.
This is not just recommended to keep the ideal website speed, as Mueller said Google would only follow five hops in a 301 redirect chain every time it crawls. Google won’t land on the destination URL if the hops are more than five.
Mueller offered this guidance to an SEO in a Reddit thread, who asked if it was okay to use multiple 301 redirects between blogs. In response, Mueller said that it doesn’t matter as long as you stay below five. He added that with numerous hops, things get a bit slower for website users. Online search engines simply stick to the redirect chain, and for Google, this is up to five hops.
Preferably, site owners must minimise the number of hops in their 301 redirect chain, as multiple redirects can slow down user experience. Exceeding five will lead to Googlebot not landing on the destination URL.
This blog post used the details found here: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-john-mueller-recommends-less-than-5-hops-per-redirect-chain/344664/. To read more about the topic, visit the link provided.
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