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Hopcheck stops following a redirect chain after 10 hops. Redirect chains longer than this are very rare and almost always signal a misconfiguration or an infinite redirect loop. If you see this message, the chain did not end — Hopcheck hit its safety limit.

This is different from a chain that completed naturally. A completed chain ends with a 200 OK or similar final response; a truncated chain ends because the cap was reached. The tool labels each case differently so you can tell them apart.

A failed check means Hopcheck could not reach the URL you submitted. This can happen for several reasons:

• DNS resolution failure — the domain does not exist or could not be found.
• Connection timeout — the server did not respond within the time limit.
• Invalid URL — the format was not recognised as a valid URL.
• Network error — an unexpected transport-layer error occurred.

Hopcheck reports the error at the hop where it occurred and which hop in the chain failed. It does not describe its own failure as a finding about your link — if the trace could not complete, the error message says so explicitly.

Each redirect hop has an HTTP status code that explains why the redirect happened:

• 301 Moved Permanently — The resource has a new permanent URL. Browsers and search engines should update their bookmarks and indexes to the new location.
• 302 Found — The resource is temporarily at a different URL. Browsers should use the original URL for future requests.
• 303 See Other — The response to the request can be found at another URL using GET. Often used after form submissions.
• 307 Temporary Redirect — Like 302 but the browser must preserve the original HTTP method (POST stays POST).
• 308 Permanent Redirect — Like 301 but the browser must preserve the original HTTP method.

A permanent redirect (301, 308) and a temporary one (302, 307) are different facts. A permanent redirect signals long-term relocation; a temporary one usually indicates a short-term override. Hopcheck reports the exact code so you can tell the difference.

Yes — it is a security finding. A plaintext HTTP hop means the URL (including any query parameters such as session IDs, tokens, or tracking data) was transmitted in the clear over the network at that hop, even if the chain starts and ends on HTTPS.

Even one plaintext hop carries the full URL on the wire. This exposes query parameters that may contain sensitive data — attribution tokens, redirect destinations, authentication state — to anyone monitoring the connection. Hopcheck flags every plaintext transition so nothing slips past unnoticed.

Some redirects drop, rewrite, or replace query parameters. This is one of the most common findings Hopcheck is designed to surface. If a query string changed during a hop, Hopcheck reports:

• Which parameters were dropped — present in the original URL but missing after the redirect.
• Which parameters were added — appeared after the hop but were not in the URL before.
• Which values were rewritten — parameter names survived but the values changed.

This is often invisible if you only check the final destination. A lost ?ref= is a lost attribution; a silently rewritten ?utm_source= breaks campaign tracking.

Hopcheck does not log, store, or persist submitted URLs or redirect chain data beyond the duration of the individual request. The results are returned to your browser and are not retained on the server. No database or persistent storage is used. See the privacy policy for full details.