Nowadays in the digital age, efficient URL management is necessary for (re)direction. Whether you are a webmaster, a marketer, a developer or you manage a website, checking if a link is functional can determine the success of it. Chrome doesn’t actually require an extension to do this; it’s a pretty straightforward process, and using an extension to do it might seem like overkill to some. We have already written about the best alternative when it comes to opening links quickly and recovering tabs, now let’s check some Chrome extensions which also do the same.
Overview:
Requestly is a flexible Chrome extension which allows you to modify network requests and responses on the move. Good for developers that have to mimic different environments or debug URL redirects.
Key Features:
- Redirect Rules: Define your own rules to redirect URLs matching certain patterns or conditions.
- Modify Headers: Customise the HTTP request and response headers for testing the conditions that make your website unusable.
- Mock Up APIs: Pretend you have an API and simulate it response so you can see how your app is behaving with different data formats.
- Environment switching: Manage applications on multiple environments (e.g., dev, staging, live) without having to manually change the links.
Use Cases:
Test url redirecting in different environment.
Redirecting requests to local host servers in development or staging.
Mocking various HTTP status codes or error responses is also for debugging.
Link Redirect Trace
Overview:
Link Redirect Trace is a chrome extension that helps in debugging and analytics of URL redirects. Its grate tool for SEO experts and webmaster to analyze whole chain of redirects of URL.
Key Features:
Redirect Path Analysis: analyse the complete redirect path of a URL and discover broken redirects.
HTTP Status Codes: Find the HTTP status codes being returned in the redirect chain to diagnose whether ornot there are any problems with redirection.
Canonical Tags: Determines if a page has a proper rel=”canonical” tag for SEO.
Backlink Analysis: Aids in evaluating the quality and performance of backlinks leading to the redirected URLs.
Use Cases:
Checking That URL Redirects Are Not Impacting SEO Work.
Checking your site for broken links or chains of erring redirects.
Looking at what your competitors are doing to ensure they are redirecting correctly.
Redirect Path
Overview:
Redirect Path is a Chrome extension that does what it says it does – showing you all the HTTP status codes on the webpage and any 3xx series client-side redirects. It’s meant to provide SEO professionals with a fast and simple summary of what the page they are being redirected to is going to be.
Key Features:
- HTTP Status Codes: Flags key status codes like 301, 302, 404 and 500 right in the browser.
- Client-Side Redirects: Discovers client-side redirects and checks Meta and JavaScript redirects.
- HTTP Headers: Shows many different HTTP headers like Server types and caching headers.
- Server IP Address: Shows the IP address of the server where the site is hosted.
Use Cases:
Spotting those redirect issues that could hurt a site’s SEO and user experience.
making sure that your site’s pages return the right HTTP status code and don’t give 404 errors.
Debugging client-side redirects, such as those powered by JavaScript.
URL Auto Redirector
Overview:
URL Auto Redirector is a straight-forward Chrome extension that automatically redirects your URL based on rules. It may be especially helpful for people to skip through unwanted intermediary pages, like ads or referral links, for a faster browsing experience.
Key Features:
RegEx Presets: Build your own redirect URLs with RegEx match patterns.
Go Directly To Site: Automatically proceed to the website of the online merchant when clicking these links whilst browsing the web.
Mobile Page Screen: Drive browser pages to mobile version automatically when you are surfing on a desktop browser.
Customizable Rules – Create rules for redirecting by your own scenario.
Use Cases:
Automatic closing of ad or interstitial pages during browsing.
When desktop redirects to mobile optimised versions of websites.
Saving users web clicks.
Redirector
Overview:
Redirector is a Chrome extension that lets you create redirection rules, allowing you to send any URL to a new destination. It also enables the use of regular expressions and provides an easy way to redirect certain specific URLs to different destinations as per your choice.
Key Features:
- Custom Redirects: You can set your own redirect rules using regular expressions for unmatched flexibility.
- Wildcards Allowed – Wildcards can be used to match a large number of URLs.
- Flexible Match Conditions: Match URLs by host, path, query args and many other conditions, combine these rules and protect yourself against redirect chains.
- Useful Interface: The interface has a very intuitive UI area making it easy to segment and set up your redirects without any technical information.
Use Cases:
Redirecting old or broken links to updated URLs.
Redirect as a manager in affiliate marketing campaigns so that the users are always in the proper pages.
Advanced Redirection rules for a more user friendly experience.
Conclusion
Link redirection and recovery is part of keeping web browsing experience seamless and website working efficiently. With the assistance of these Chrome extensions you can handle URL redirection and recovery tasks easier and faster, so that your users and search engines see only quality links all the time. Whether you want to track the chain of redirects for SEO, or issue a 301 for a very particular URL pattern, these extensions have got you covered for different scenarios.
As the web continues to evolve, features like these are only going to become more essential for those looking to manage a significant amount of content on their website (or if they have a complex redirection situation). Prevent being drowned on the shore when it comes to recovering old dead links — here is a list of Chrome Extensions whooping link redirect & recovery’s butt to make sure you stay with, up to date URLs, better SEO, and increased user experience.
