SOP: Audit and shorten your redirect chain

SOP: Audit and shorten your redirect chain
Every hop adds latency and a failure point. Mobile users drop off fast past two redirects.

— Step 1: Open a click in a tool that logs the full chain (curl -IL or a redirect tracer).
— Step 2: Count the 30x hops from click to final landing page.
— Step 3: Identify any avoidable hop — a tracking domain that could be merged, an old shortener still in the path.
— Step 4: Replace 302s with direct meta/JS redirects only where postback isn't affected.
— Step 5: Target ≤2 hops: your smartlink → advertiser landing.

Each extra hop costs ~100–300ms and risks one more chance for an ad-block or carrier to break the chain.

Measure time-to-final-URL, not just hop count — a single slow hop is worse than two fast ones.

Audit chains weekly and after any domain change.