How to test your 301 redirects after a website migration

What a passing redirect looks like

Google's own site-move guide says to do exactly this: "Test the redirects. You can use the URL Inspection Tool for testing individual URLs, or command line tools or scripts to test large numbers of URLs."

Each old URL in your map should pass all four of these:

1. The first response is permanent: 301 or 308. Google recommends HTTP permanent redirects such as 301 and 308 for a site move, and says 301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank. A 302 or 307 is temporary (everything curl, Redirects). Webflow's redirect help documents its redirect settings as 301 redirects, used to permanently route an old path to a new URL. Framer's redirect help says its redirects permanently route traffic from the old URL to the new one. Test the live response. That status is the one that counts.
2. One hop. Googlebot can follow up to 10 hops, but Google advises redirecting straight to the final destination. If you can't, keep the chain short: ideally no more than 3, and fewer than 5. Two hops can mean an old rule and a new rule are both firing, or that the host added a hop of its own, such as http to https or a www change.
3. The final page answers 200. Google's site-move guide names redirecting to a URL that does not exist as a common mistake.
4. It lands on the page you planned. Google says not to redirect many old URLs to one irrelevant destination, such as the new homepage, and that this might be treated as a soft 404.

Rows you deliberately retired should answer 404 or 410 and not redirect anywhere. Google's guide says URLs for content you are not moving should return a 404 or 410.

Test one URL

For a quick spot check, use curl in a terminal. -I asks for headers only. -L tells curl to follow redirects. Curl does not follow them unless you ask.

curl -sIL https://old-site.com/old-page | grep -iE '^(HTTP/|location:)'

You'll see each status line and location header in order. One 301 or 308 line followed by one 200 is what you want. -I sends a HEAD request. Some servers answer a HEAD differently from a GET. If the result looks wrong, run the same command without -I.

Browsers are meant to cache a 301, so a browser test after you fix a rule can show the old behaviour. Curl does not cache redirects.

In Google Search Console, the URL Inspection tool checks a single URL. The first view is Google's indexed copy, not a live fetch. Use Live Test on that screen to check the current page.

Test the whole map

Testing one URL at a time stops working past a dozen rows. If you used the redirect map template, this script reads it directly. It needs bash and curl. macOS includes both, and so do most Linux distributions. On Windows, use WSL or Git Bash with curl installed.

Download check-redirects.sh

NEW_SITE=https://www.your-new-site.com ./check-redirects.sh redirect-map.csv > results.tsv

For each row it makes two GET requests, one URL at a time: one that does not follow redirects (the first status, 15 second cap) and one that follows up to 10 hops (30 second cap), matching Google's limit. It uses curl's num_redirects, http_code and url_effective write-out values and marks the row:

• redirect rows PASS when the first status is 301 or 308, there is exactly one hop, the final status is 200 and the final URL equals NEW_SITE + new_path.
• keep rows PASS when the page answers 200 at the expected URL with at most one hop. One hop allows for a domain change.
• retire-404 and retire-410 rows PASS when the old URL returns that status and does not redirect.
• Any other action, including redirect (wildcard), is marked CHECK. Test a few real URLs under each wildcard by hand.

The script prints a header and one tab-separated row per URL. This illustration uses the pass rules above. It is not a capture from a live site. Open the real results.tsv in a spreadsheet and filter on FAIL.

old_url	expected	first_status	hops	final_status	final_url	result
https://old.example/pricing	https://www.new.example/pricing	301	1	200	https://www.new.example/pricing	PASS
https://old.example/gone	404, no redirect	404	0	404	https://old.example/gone	PASS
https://old.example/retired	410, no redirect	404	0	404	https://old.example/retired	FAIL

Three things to know:

• The comparison is exact text, so https, www and trailing slashes in NEW_SITE and new_path must match how the live site writes its URLs.
• The script splits on commas and does not understand quotes. A comma in old_url, old_path or new_path shifts that row. Commas in later columns, such as notes, do not.
• It sends GET requests, because some servers answer HEAD differently from GET. It requests one URL at a time. For a few thousand rows, that is a sequence of requests against your own site, not a burst of parallel connections.

Prefer a desktop tool? Screaming Frog's SEO Spider can audit a list of old URLs: switch to list mode, turn on Always Follow Redirects, then export the All Redirects report.

What a FAIL usually means

Keep checking after launch

Run the script again a week after launch and record the first status in the map's day7_check_status column. Then watch Search Console's Page indexing report. A non-canonical URL that redirects is listed there as Page with redirect and is not indexed. Google's site-move guide says an unusually high number of Not found errors is a sign of incorrect redirects.

Google says that for a medium-sized website it can take a few weeks or more before it starts showing the new URLs instead of the old ones, and says to keep the redirects for as long as possible, generally at least a year.

Don't have the old URLs?

Then you can't test them yet. How to find old URLs after a migration covers where to get them.

The free Lost-URL Scan looks up the addresses public web archives saved for a domain and checks what each one returns on the live site today. It shows the top 10 free.

Scan my old URLs free

Want the redirect file without building the sheet? The DIY Fix Kit ($49 once; ₹3,999 in India, no GST) turns your scan's lost-URL list into a ready-to-import redirect file for Webflow, Framer, WordPress, Next.js/Vercel, Netlify, Apache, Nginx or CSV, with a re-check 7 days later. It's offered on your scan results. Run the free scan

Want it done for you? Migration Repair: we map every old URL that gets search traffic, put the redirects in and check them at launch and 7 days later. $500 per site (₹40,000 in India); sites over 60 URLs are quoted first. The redirect map for your top 10 pages is free first: email hello@swynq.com. We don't promise rankings or traffic.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, Site moves with URL changes. The testing sentence, permanent 301 and 308 redirects, PageRank, the 10-hop limit, soft 404s, 404 and 410 for content you are not moving, Not found errors, the few-weeks timing, and keeping redirects for at least a year.
2. Webflow Help, How do I set up redirects in Webflow?. 301 redirects, described there as a permanent route from an old path to a new URL. A live page at the old path has to be removed or re-slugged before the redirect applies.
3. Framer Help, How to set up redirects to maintain SEO ranking. Redirects permanently route traffic from an old URL to a new one. Updated 15 September 2026.
4. everything curl, Redirects. 301 and 308 are permanent, 302 and 307 are temporary, -L follows redirects, browsers are meant to cache a 301, and curl does not cache redirects.
5. curl man page, --write-out. http_code, num_redirects and url_effective.
6. Redirect Tracer, How to check URL redirects. -I is a HEAD request, and some servers answer HEAD differently from GET.
7. Google Search Console Help, URL Inspection tool and Page indexing report. Live Test, Page with redirect, and Not found (404).
8. Screaming Frog, How to audit redirects in a site migration. List mode, Always Follow Redirects, All Redirects report.

Questions