What Is Redirect Loop?

A redirect loop occurs when two or more URLs redirect to each other in a circular pattern, creating an infinite loop that prevents the page from ever loading. Browsers detect this and show an ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS error.

Why It Matters

A redirect loop means your website is completely inaccessible. Visitors see “This page isn’t working” or “ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS” in their browser. Search engines can’t crawl the page either, which means your site drops out of search results entirely.

Redirect loops are one of the most common issues after setting up domain forwarding or SSL, and they can be tricky to diagnose because the loop may only affect certain URL variants (HTTP vs HTTPS, www vs non-www).

How It Works

A loop happens when URL A redirects to URL B, and URL B redirects back to URL A:

Browser requests example.com
Server returns 301: go to www.example.com
Browser requests www.example.com
Server returns 301: go to example.com
Infinite loop — browser gives up after ~20 attempts

Common Causes

Conflicting www/non-www rules. Setting the apex domain to redirect to www, while www redirects back to the apex domain — often caused by misconfigured DNS or CDN rules.

HTTP-to-HTTPS conflict. Your server redirects HTTP → HTTPS, but your CDN/proxy redirects HTTPS → HTTP (or vice versa). This creates a loop between the two layers.

Competing redirect services. Using registrar forwarding AND a DNS-based redirect service simultaneously, each trying to redirect the other’s output.

CDN + origin conflict. Cloudflare’s “Always Use HTTPS” redirects to HTTPS, but the origin server also has a redirect rule pointing back to HTTP.

How Domain Forward Handles This

Domain Forward validates redirect configurations before activating them. If a source and destination would create a loop, we flag it. The DNS setup guide explicitly walks you through removing conflicting registrar forwarding rules before pointing DNS to our servers.

Related Features

Dns Setup Https Domain Forwarding