Redirect: what it means and how to fix it

What we look for

Each of these addresses forwards once to another address with a redirect (a rule, such as a 301 or 302, that sends visitors and search engines on).

Why it matters

A single redirect is normal after a page moves and needs no change. Links that use the final address save visitors and search engines a step.

How to fix

Update links to use the final address where you can, and list only final addresses in the sitemap (the file that lists your pages for search engines). Keep the redirect itself, so old links and bookmarks still work.

Seen in a real crawl

From a crawl of Millbrook Hardware (the broken fixture), a test site from Raptor’s fixture suite.

Note

1 address forwards to another address

/moved-to-missingStatus 301 redirect to /removed-destination (final response 404)

Paths on http://127.0.0.1:8001raptor 0.3.0, 17 Oct 2026

Open this finding in that crawl’s report

It also fired on Kestrel Bay Digital.

Where you’ll see it

The id is stable, and every surface uses it, so it’s the thing to search for or hand to an agent.

Terminal: When it is one of the five findings under Fix first, raptor crawl prints the id under it.
Check: response_codes.internal_redirect
crawl.json and the CSV: The crawl JSON names the finding by this id, and so do the CSV and raptor_query.
"check_id": "response_codes.internal_redirect"
The HTML report: This link opens the finding in the report, and each finding shows its id.
crawl.html#finding=response_codes.internal_redirect
MCP: raptor_findings with this check_id returns the finding in full, with a fix brief ready to paste into a task. If it didn’t fire, it says why.
raptor_findings { "job_id": "...", "check_id": "response_codes.internal_redirect" }