After redirecting your site to new URL/domain name or setting a HTTPS version of you site, you must check that it is working on frontend and backend correctly. Copying .htaccess or configuration from other blogs may not be very ideal for your website. It is very necessary to check your redirect, specially the 301 Redirects aka Permanent redirects.
Google wants you to set a 301 redirect which tells visitors and search engine that your site link has changed. This is also required after SSL installation as Google treats HTTPS and HTTP version as two different sites. This means website can get penalized for duplicate content. If you look at the methods to set WordPress redirect to HTTPS, you will find that there are many things to go wrong and so you should use a website redirect checker.
Redirect Checker for Websites
1. HTTPStatus IO Redirect Checking tool
This is actually an amazing tool! I pushed it here to number one due to the accuracy and detail of results. It not only shows you a quick result with response code but also can provide whole Response Body i.e. how internet (engines and programs) sees your page. The data it provides can be very useful to debug things or just to feast the eyes. For more techie people or admins, you can set Redirect Headers at start.
2. Redirect-checker.org
This is simple, fast and effective 301 redirect checker for websites. It will tell you what kind of redirect your site is set to i.e. 301 vs 302. It will check headers, pings, and other variables. Results are fairly simple to understand and there is CLI (Command line interface) based result also for techsavvy people.
Good thing was, when I put HTTP version link it showed me ‘Site moved permanently’ i.e. 301 correctly done. To test, I also entered HTTPS link and it showed me 200 All ok – No redirects.
3. Webconfs
An old favorite of people on internet. They also call themselves as ‘search engine friendly redirect checker’. But, nowadays who doesn’t? This is quite simple checker and only tells you that your site is redirected as per search engine requirement or not. It also shows you big red error when there are none detected.
Hold it! That can cause False positive and sure it did. When I entered HTTPS link for GeekAct.com, it displayed that either not redirected or not search engine friendly.
4. RedirectCheck.com
A verbose kind of tool. Doesn’t look much at first look but hey, looks aren’t everything. Right? This simple tool aced the list as it shows most detailed results and data of a site. In text on side with grace but very useful. It also doesn’t misleads or reports error for HTTPS version.
5. Redirect Checker – InternetOfficer
6. Redirect Detective
7. SEO Redirect Checker – SEO Review Tools
8. SmallSEOTools.com
Another old but reliable site which has dozen of tools like Keyword tools, Grammar tools, backlink tools, Website managment, SEO management, Website tracking tools etc. You just name it and they have it. I was also able to find out PageRank checking tool here to check PR which was previously a grade with Google Search Engine.
Result is again a simple three line and not much details. However, I found their .htaccess checker for www to non-www and vice-versa quite good. Try this also, if you have changed your link to non-www or www.
Did you recently change your domain name or installed SSL to make your site HTTPS? How was the experience?