What is a redirect loop?
A redirect loop is a chain that eats its own tail. Page A redirects to page B and page B redirects back to page A, or the loop runs through three or four URLs before returning to the start. The browser follows it a few times, gives up and shows an error: too many redirects, or a message that the page is not redirecting properly. Search engine crawlers hit the same wall and record the URL as unreachable.
Loops are almost always accidental. The classic cause is two systems disagreeing: the server forces https while a plugin forces http, or the content management system adds a trailing slash while the hosting rule strips it, or a page is redirected to its own canonical URL which is redirected back. Each rule is sensible alone; together they form a circle.
Why it matters
Why a redirect loop matters
A looped page is a dead page. Nobody can see it, no crawler can index it, and if the loop catches the homepage the whole site goes dark. Because the error arrives as a browser message rather than a visible page, it is also easy to miss from inside the company, especially when it only affects one URL pattern or one device. Visitors see a broken brand; the team sees nothing until someone complains.
For search, a loop on a page that used to rank means the page drops out of the index within days, and the authority pointing at it has nowhere to go.
In practice
How redirect loops work in practice
- 01
They usually appear right after a change: a new SSL certificate, a plugin update, a migration, a new set of rewrite rules. The first sign is a spike in redirect errors in Search Console or a crawl report, or a visitor saying the site will not load. Reproducing it is easy: open the URL in a private browser window and watch the error, or use a redirect checker that lists every hop until the loop closes.
- 02
Fixing it means finding the two rules in conflict. List every place a redirect can be set: the server configuration, the hosting panel, the content delivery network, the content management system, any SEO or security plugin, and the page's own canonical and redirect fields. Trace the loop through them, remove or correct the rule that sends traffic backward, and test every variant of the URL again. Then clear the caches, because a cached redirect can keep a loop alive after the rule is gone.
Watch out
What people get wrong about redirect loops
Fixing the symptom in the browser. Clearing cookies or cache on one machine may make the error go away for that person, but every other visitor and every crawler is still stuck. The loop lives on the server.
The other mistake is stacking redirect rules in several systems at once. A site with redirects in the server config, the CDN and two plugins will loop eventually. Keep redirects in one place, and document them.
