Redirect Chain Fixer
Finds links in your posts and pages that pass through redirects and points them straight at the final page. Internal links are fixed automatically; external ones wait for your approval.
Screenshots
External links that pass through redirects wait for your approval, with every step shown.
Redirect Chain Fixer finds the links in your posts and pages that pass through redirects, and points each one straight at the page it ends up on. Every time a page moves, links to it keep working through a redirect. Move it again and visitors and search engines hop through a chain of addresses before they arrive: each hop slows the visit down, and crawlers only follow so many in a row.
Links to your own site are fixed automatically, as soon as they're found. Links to other websites go into a Needs review list that shows every step of the redirect and flags anything worth a second look, such as an old article that now lands on a homepage. Approve the changes you want and ignore the rest.
Only permanent redirects to pages that load are ever applied, so login walls, maintenance pages and affiliate links are left alone. Every change is logged and can be undone, saves a revision of the post and leaves its "last modified" date as it was. Find it under Content Powered > Redirect Chain Fixer, and get updates through the normal WordPress Updates screen.
Features
- Internal links fixed for you. Old slugs, missing slashes, ?p= links and chains of moves point straight at the page.
- External links on approval. Links to other sites wait in a review list until you approve them.
- Every step shown. See each hop and status code a link passes through before it lands.
- Permanent redirects only. Only 301 and 308 redirects to a page that loads; temporary ones are left alone.
- Affiliate links kept. Cloaked links on your own site are skipped, and you can list domains to never touch.
- Undo any change. A full log of every change, each one undoable, with a revision saved.
- Dates stay put. Fixing a link doesn't change the post's "last modified" date.
- Runs in the background. A weekly full scan, plus each post shortly after it's saved.
- Safe on any host. Short batches, one check per URL, and never a request to a private network.
- Click Download above to save
redirect-chain-fixer.zip. Leave it zipped. - In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and click Upload Plugin.
- Choose the ZIP and click Install Now, then Activate Plugin.
To update later, upload a newer ZIP the same way. WordPress offers to replace the installed version and keeps your settings.
What Is a Redirect Chain?
It's a link that passes through more than one redirect before reaching a page, for example http://example.com/old-page to https://example.com/old-page to https://example.com/new-page. The plugin fixes those, and links with a single redirect too, since pointing straight at the page is always quicker.
Why Do External Links Need My Approval?
Other websites redirect for reasons you can't always see from the outside. A removed article might now send everyone to the homepage, or a link might go through a shortener whose click counts you rely on. The review list shows where each link ends up and warns you about homepages, moves to another website and pages that turned the checker away, then leaves the decision to you.
Will It Break My Affiliate Links?
No. Cloaked affiliate links on your own site, like the ones Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates create, redirect to another website, so the plugin leaves them alone. For direct affiliate or shortener links, add the domain under Skip these domains and it's never checked.
Can I Undo a Change?
Yes. Every change is listed under Fixed with an Undo link, which puts that link back exactly as it was and stops it being changed again. If the post has been edited since, open its revisions instead: each change saved one.
Does It Check Page Builder Layouts?
It checks the content the block editor and classic editor save, including links inside blocks. Layouts that page builders such as Elementor or Divi store separately aren't scanned.
How Do I Get Updates?
Through the normal WordPress Updates screen. The plugin checks our GitHub releases twice a day, and you can update with one click or turn on auto-updates from the Plugins screen.
- See https://github.com/jmsprsns/Redirect-Chain-Fixer/releases for the full release history.
Download
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