Search Console lists a URL as Page with redirect when Googlebot requested it and got redirected somewhere else. The redirecting URL is not indexed; Google indexes the target instead, if the target is indexable.
Most of the time this is correct. An old URL that 301s to its replacement, http:// to https://, or a non-www host to www all belong here. The status needs work only when a URL you want in search is in the list, or when your own site keeps sending Google to URLs that redirect.
Shows each redirect hop, the final status, the canonical tag, meta robots, X-Robots-Tag and robots.txt rules for Googlebot. Free, no signup.
Open the report row and go through the example URLs. Each one falls into one of three groups.
| The URL is | What to do |
|---|---|
| An old or duplicate URL that should redirect | Nothing. Make sure the target is the page you want indexed and answers 200. |
| A page you want in search | Find out why it redirects (step 2). This is the case that costs traffic. |
| A URL your site still links to or lists in the sitemap | Point the links and sitemap at the final URL (step 3). The redirect itself can stay. |
Run the URL through the noindex checker or the X-Robots-Tag checker; both list every hop with its status code. These are the usual causes:
| Cause | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Trailing slash or case rules | /shoes redirects to /shoes/, or /Shoes to /shoes. Fine, as long as every link, canonical and sitemap entry uses the final form. |
| Protocol or host | The URL Google crawled is http:// or the other host. The page itself is fine; Google found the old form somewhere. |
| Redirect added by mistake | A redirect plugin rule, a CMS slug change or a migration map that catches more URLs than it should. A wildcard rule like /blog/* to /news/ sends every post to one page. |
| Language or location redirects | The server redirects by IP or Accept-Language. Googlebot mostly crawls from the US without that header, so it only ever sees one version. Show a language banner instead of redirecting. |
| Login or consent walls | The page redirects visitors without a cookie to a login, age gate or cookie page. Googlebot has no cookies, so it never reaches the content. |
| Canonical and redirect disagree | Page A has a canonical to B, and B redirects back to A. Google gets two opposite signals; fix whichever is wrong. |
Redirects done with JavaScript or a meta refresh show up in this report too. Google treats them as redirects once it renders the page, but they are slower and less reliable than a server-side 301. Our checkers follow HTTP redirects only, so use URL Inspection to see those.
List only final URLs in your XML sitemap. A sitemap full of redirecting URLs fills this report and wastes crawls. Update internal links in menus, footers and templates to the final URL, and make the canonical tag point at the final URL, never at one that redirects.
Keep chains short. Google follows up to 10 hops per crawl, but each hop costs time and a chain like http://example.com/a to https://example.com/a to https://www.example.com/a to https://www.example.com/a/ can usually be one 301. Use 301 or 308 for permanent moves; a 302 tells Google the old URL may come back.
A redirect only helps if the target can be indexed. Check that it answers 200, has no noindex, isn't blocked in robots.txt and has a self-referencing canonical. If you removed a redirect that was a mistake, run Test live URL in URL Inspection, then Request indexing. For many URLs, click Validate fix on the report row. Expect days to weeks before the URLs move out of the report.
A redirect rule that sends a live page to a 404, or a chain that grows with each migration, usually shows up in Search Console days later. NoindexWatch checks your URLs once a day for error status codes, chains of 3 or more redirects, noindex in meta tags and headers, robots.txt blocks and canonicals that point elsewhere, and emails you when something changes. The free plan covers 1 URL, no card.
Sources: Google Search Central documentation on redirects and Google Search, the Page indexing report, URL Inspection and sitemaps. Related: Google chose different canonical than user · Excluded by 'noindex' tag.