How to Fix Redirect Chains Without Creating New Ones

Start with the final destination

Before editing rules, identify the one URL that should be the true end state. Without that decision, teams shorten one chain and create another somewhere else.

Then find the owner of each hop

Some hops live in the CDN, others in the app, CMS, proxy, or historical server config. If ownership is unclear, the same URL often gets normalized twice by different layers.

Better cleanup pattern

Point every legacy URL directly to the final destination where possible. Remove transitional redirects that no longer serve a purpose, and re-test with real historical URLs instead of only a few clean examples.