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Speed

Visitors are sent through extra detours

What this means for your business

Your pages send visitors through one or more detours before reaching the destination. Each redirect adds a full round-trip of waiting time. Visitors on slow mobile connections feel this most — and Google counts it against your page speed score.

How to fix it
Easy
30–60 minutes

  1. 1A redirect is when one URL automatically sends visitors to another URL. Multiple redirects in a chain (A → B → C) add a waiting round-trip for each hop — visitors have to wait for each step before the page starts loading.
  2. 2Common redirect chains: HTTP → HTTPS → www → the actual page URL. Each step adds 100–300ms on a good connection.
  3. 3Fix redirect chains by updating links to point directly to the final destination URL, bypassing the intermediate redirects.
  4. 4The most common fix is changing all internal links from http:// to https:// and from non-www to your canonical domain — so visitors go straight there without detours.
  5. 5Ask your hosting provider or developer to configure your web server so that HTTP-to-HTTPS and www-to-non-www (or vice versa) happen in a single redirect, not two separate ones.

On WordPress

Install the Redirection plugin — it maps all active redirects on your site and highlights chains. Set your preferred URL format in Settings → General (make sure "WordPress Address" and "Site Address" match your final canonical URL).

On Shopify

Shopify handles HTTPS automatically. For custom redirects, go to Online Store → Navigation → URL Redirects. Edit any redirects that point to another redirect rather than the final page.

Pro tip: Check your site's homepage first. It often goes through 2–3 redirects (HTTP → HTTPS, non-www → www). Fixing the homepage redirect chain alone can shave 300–600ms from every first-time visit.

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