Help Centre

Open the App page, paste a full URL into the text box, and click Trace. Hopcheck follows every redirect one hop at a time and shows you the whole chain — each URL, the HTTP status code that caused the hop, and what changed along the way.

If you paste a URL without a scheme (e.g. example.com/link), https:// is added automatically. Chains are capped at 10 hops; if the cap is reached, Hopcheck tells you it did not complete rather than pretending the chain ended.

No account, no sign-up, no tracking. Paste and trace — that's it.

Why does my URL redirect twice (or more times than I expected)?

Many links pass through multiple intermediaries before reaching their final destination. A single 301 or 302 redirect is rare in practice — most URLs hop through link-shorteners, tracking services, CDN gateways, and protocol upgrades.

For example, a campaign link like example.com/?ref=deal might:

• First hit a tracking service that 302-redirects with a ?si= parameter added
• Then redirect to the final page with a 301 that drops the original ?ref=

Every hop is expected behaviour from one link in the chain — Hopcheck just shows you each step instead of hiding it.

I'm seeing "redirect loop" / "too many redirects" — what does that mean?

Hopcheck detects a redirect loop when the same URL appears more than once in the chain. A loop means the page is unreachable by any direct path — the server keeps sending the browser back to a URL it already visited.

If Hopcheck reports a loop, the URL is currently broken for everybody. The most common causes are misconfigured reverse proxies (e.g. a load balancer that redirects HTTP to HTTPS, which the origin redirects back to HTTP) or a redirect rule that points back to itself. Show the loop output to whoever manages the target domain's server config — it identifies the exact URL where the loop starts.

Why did my query string get dropped?

A lost query parameter is one of the most common and invisible issues in redirect chains. The link arrives at the right page, but a parameter like ?ref=, ?utm_source=, or ?session= vanished along the way.

Query strings are dropped when a redirect target server constructs its Location header without forwarding the original query string. For example, a 301 from https://ex.co/go?a=1 to https://ex.co/dest (without ?a=1) silently discards a.

Hopcheck compares the query string at every hop and explicitly names every parameter that was lost or added. Check the detailed hop report — if you see "Query parameters dropped: ref", the destination server or intermediate redirect is stripping it. That's a change on the server side, not a Hopcheck bug.

What does an HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect chain look like — and why do I care?

A typical chain looks like:

• http://example.com → 301 → https://example.com → 200 OK

That's normal. But some chains contain plaintext hops in the middle — a URL that was HTTPS briefly drops to HTTP before arriving back at HTTPS. Hopcheck flags every hop that is http:// with a warning.

Why it matters: one plaintext hop carries the full URL (including query parameters) over the network in plain sight. If your URL contains a ?token= or ?session= parameter, that credential is exposed on the wire during that hop, even if the final page is served over HTTPS.

Can I check where a shortened link goes before clicking it?

Yes — that is one of the primary use cases for Hopcheck. Paste the short link (e.g. bit.ly/abc123, t.co/xyz) into the trace box. Hopcheck follows the redirect chain and shows you every intermediate step and the final destination, without you having to click the link in your browser.

This is useful both for:

• Support staff handed a short link by a customer who says "it doesn't work" — see exactly where it goes before deciding whether it's safe to click.
• Marketers verifying that tracking parameters survive the full chain of a shortened campaign URL.

Hopcheck only follows HTTP-level redirects. If the short link's page relies on a JavaScript redirect (window.location) or a meta-refresh inside HTML, Hopcheck cannot follow it — see known limitations below.

Why does an HTTP hop in the chain matter if the final page is HTTPS?

Because the plaintext exposure happens at the HTTP hop, not at the destination. If a chain goes:

https://a.com → 302 → http://b.com/track?session=abc → 301 → https://c.com

The full URL http://b.com/track?session=abc was transmitted in the clear over the network during the middle hop. A person on the same Wi-Fi or at the ISP could have seen it. The final destination being HTTPS does not retroactively protect data that already crossed the wire without encryption.

Hopcheck flags every unencrypted hop with a yellow warning badge, regardless of where in the chain it appears.

10-hop cap

Chains longer than 10 hops are reported as capped, not as completed. Hopcheck tells you which hop reached the limit. A capped chain is a different result from an ended one, and they are rendered differently in the interface.

No meta-refresh or JavaScript redirect detection

Hopcheck follows HTTP redirect status codes only: 301, 302, 303, 307, and 308. It does not parse HTML to find <meta http-equiv="refresh"> tags and does not execute JavaScript. A page that redirects via window.location or a meta tag will appear as a terminal (non-redirect) result. This is on the roadmap for the Pro tier.

No crawling beyond the submitted URL

Hopcheck checks one URL per request and only that URL. It never crawls the destination page, never follows links found in the response body, and never scans a domain. If you need to check a batch of links, each one must be submitted individually. Batch checking is planned for the Pro tier.

No email, alerts, or scheduled checks

Hopcheck does not send email, reminders, digests, or scheduled re-check notifications. There is no email sender connected to this service. The tool answers when you ask it — it cannot notify you about changes to a URL. If you paste a URL now and trace it, the result is delivered to your browser right then; it is not stored, and you cannot get an alert if the chain changes later.

Pro tier (batch checks, longer chains, export) not yet available

The Pro tier described on the Pricing page has not shipped yet. It features (longer chains, batch checking, meta-refresh detection, JSON export) are planned but not purchasable today. The Free tier — one URL, up to 10 hops — is the whole product today.

No legal entity registered yet

Hopcheck operates without a registered legal entity, postal address, or governing jurisdiction. The operator has not yet supplied these details. This affects the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which state this explicitly. Until a legal entity is registered, no contractual relationship binds anyone through this tool.

If you have found a bug — a trace result that looked wrong, a URL that Hopcheck could not handle, or a display issue — the most useful thing you can do is describe what you submitted and what you expected to see. Because there is no mailbox to receive it, please document the issue on the project's issue tracker (if one exists) or contact the operator directly through whatever channel they have provided.

For urgent issues affecting your ability to use the tool, the operator can be reached through the support channel they have arranged outside of this site. No support channel has been published yet; this is recorded as a requirement for the owner.

This page will be updated with a working contact method as soon as one is established.