Having too many 301 redirects isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it's just a way to let search engines know that a permanent page name change is happening. But in saying that, 301 redirects essentially mean a page is redirecting to another page, requiring extra loading time. As you might know, page load time is a ranking factor for SEO. This might also impact a user's willingness to stay, depending on the load time. Another ranking factor is bounce rates. If a user is bouncing off because they're impatient, that will impact your SEO in the long run.

Lastly, more technically, in SEO, there's something called page rank. To keep things simple, it's Google's view of a page and its scoring of how well it deems a page to be able to rank for a keyword. This score is passed on through a 301, but some of this magic is slightly lost when we perform a 301. This is something to note; if this is happening on a large scale, then it becomes problematic.

In the grand scheme of things, it's not bad; it has its uses. I think the key is its use should be very strategic, and the intention is a permanent change of things. Monitor, analyse, and react to the changes.

If you’re after a free redirection checker tool there are plenty of theme online here a few:

• Free online redirection checker 1
• Free online redirection checker 2
• Free online redirection checker 3

Ready to take your website to the top of search results? Contact our SEO experts now and start improving your rankings today!