Keep old links and http:// addresses landing in the right place
Redirects are set up once and then forgotten — until a web server is replaced, a CDN rule is rewritten or a relaunch goes live. Then http:// stops forwarding to https://, the bare domain no longer reaches www, the old product URLs that years of links point at answer 404, or two rules send visitors back and forth until the browser gives up. A normal uptime check follows the redirect, finds a working page at the end and reports nothing.
Pingsured can check the redirect itself.
Checking one redirect
Turn off "follow redirects" on the ping. The check then judges the redirect response, not the page behind it:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| URL | http://example.com/ |
| Expected status | 301 |
Header Location | equals https://www.example.com/ |
This fails when the redirect disappears, when it turns into a temporary 302, and when it points anywhere else. Use one ping per redirect that matters: the http version of your domain, the bare domain, and the old addresses of your most-linked pages.
Checking a whole chain
With "follow redirects" on, set the maximum number of redirects — 3 by default, up to 20 — and expect 200. A chain longer than that ends on a redirect instead of a page, so the status does not match and the check fails. That catches redirect loops, and chains that grew one hop with every migration.
After a relaunch
A site migration is where redirects matter most and fail most. Before the switch, create a ping for each of your most important old URLs, with its expected new address. On launch day they tell you which rules work, and they keep checking afterwards, when the next change to the server configuration quietly undoes one.
Why check redirects with Pingsured
- It sees what browsers do not show. A redirect that works but goes to the wrong place, or uses the wrong status code, looks fine to a person clicking through.
- Exact checks. Status code and
Locationheader, compared exactly or with a regular expression. - From every location. Redirects are often made by a CDN; each location is judged on its own, so a rule missing at one edge is not hidden by the others.
- Credentials stay where they belong. When a check follows a redirect to another host, the request headers you configured are not sent along.
Limits worth knowing
- A check that does not follow redirects judges one response. To check both the redirect and the page it leads to, use two pings.
- Checks send
GETorHEADrequests.