Page resource URL redirects back to itself

This means that the URL in question is a resource URL that redirects back to itself in a loop (e.g. URL 1 -> URL 1), which results in the resource being inaccessible.

Why is this important?

A redirected URL, typically 301 (permanent) or 302 (temporary) means that the location of the page has changed, and the user is sent from the original URL to a new one.

In this case, the URL in question is a page resource URL (e.g. Image URL or JavaScript file), which means it is used for rendering the content on a page. If the resource is no longer accessible, this may affect how it is rendered, which could cause a poor user experience.

What does the Hint check?

This Hint will trigger for any page resource URL which redirects, where the redirect URL is the same as the original URL.

Examples that trigger this Hint:

Consider the resource URL: https://example.com/css/body.css

The Hint would trigger for any URL if it returned a 3XX HTTP header response pointing back at the same URL, for example;

HTTP/... 301 Moved Permanently 
...
Location: https://example.com/css/body.css

...

How do you resolve this issue?

If you have issues with page resource URLs, this could mean that page content is not rendering correctly, which may be providing a poor experience for website visitors. Further, search engines like Google are moving towards being 'render-first', and if they are unable to access resources necessary for rendering, this may affect how the content is indexed.

Resource URLs should not be redirecting in the first place, as this increases load time and may also affect rendering. If a page resource URL is redirecting back on itself, then this needs to be handled in one of two ways:

• Fix the HTTP response - serve a 200 (OK) HTTP response, to remove the redirect and make the URL accessible.
• Remove all references - if the resource has been removed and cannot be replaced, remove all incoming references to the redirected URL. If necessary, make changes to the page to ensure that rendering still works ok.

How do you get more data from Sitebulb?

For the second option above, the final stage of the job requires you to find and update all the incoming URLs which reference the resource.

You can find these by clicking on the grey View button from the URL List, under the column No. URLs Referencing Resource.