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Redirect Map Builder

Free, no signup. A migration lives or dies on whether every old URL lands somewhere real. Paste your old URLs and new URLs and get a suggested 301 map — each row scored into a confidence tier with a plain-English reason, an override dropdown, a first-class unmatched bucket, and a 410 kill-list for pages with no equivalent.

Built by Patrick Stox

Built your map? Verify the live chains afterwards with the HTTP Status & Redirect Checker.

Paste 404 log or GSC not-found export
Normalization options

Example data — replace with your own

Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you paste is uploaded or stored. Sitemap import and content matching are opt-in exceptions — see below. Anonymous run-level outcome counters may be used for aggregate research; URLs, domains, IPs, and identifiers are never included, and no statistic is released below 100 runs.

Feedback
Report a bug

Found something broken in Redirect Map Builder? Let us know what happened — this goes straight to a private triage queue, not a public list.

What will be sent 
 No tool inputs, uploads, pasted source, complete results, query parameters, or URL fragments are attached automatically. You can edit or remove the selected passage above. Browser and anti-abuse metadata is processed for spam prevention. 
  
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
   
  
 Pattern rules  — bulk path transforms applied before matching 
 
   →   
 
 
     
      
     What this result means ↓  
      
     How the matching evidence works 
     
    Each row’s “Why” control shows every matcher that ran. Raw scores are internal ordering only, not confidence percentages; the tier descriptions come from the labeled fixture calibration below.
     
     
          
    Bulk redirect and soft-404 audit
    Paste exported redirect/status/content evidence as JSON. Clicks, traffic, referring domains, provenance, hops, final canonical, raw/rendered error evidence, and intent text stay attached to each source row.
     
       
     
    Sample report Example data — real, matcher-verified result
     
    Say you migrated a blog and product catalogue. Your old URLs:
     
     
    https://example.com/2019/06/seo-tips
https://example.com/about-us.html
https://example.com/product.php?id=482
https://example.com/blog/deprecated-tactic
     
     
    …and your new URLs:
     
     
    https://example.com/blog/seo-tips
https://example.com/about-us
https://example.com/shop/482-blue-widget
     
     
    …and the builder returns:
      
       
    • Two Strong matches, safe to accept. The dated blog post matched by
slug ("seo-tips") and the PHP product page matched by its numeric ID (482) — see
what each confidence tier means.
      •  
    • /about-us.html is actually an Exact match (extension-stripped hit
            on /about-us) — here it's shown marked 410 instead, to demonstrate
            the kill-list toggle overriding an automatic pick.
      •  
    • /blog/deprecated-tactic has no equivalent — its best candidate is
            only an 18%-similar weak guess, below the accept threshold, so it lands in
unmatched for a manual decision, content matching, or a 410.
      •  
    • Once the map looks right, tick Check destinations are live 200s before export,
            or read site migrations for the full redirect-mapping
            process.
      •  
     
     
     
    How to use it
     
       
    1. Paste your old URLs on the left — the pre-migration set that will start
            404'ing. A GSC Pages export, a crawl of the old site, or the 404 report all work; upload a
            CSV/TXT and the first URL-looking column is sniffed out automatically.
      2.  
    2. Paste your new URLs on the right — the live destination set — or drop in a
sitemap URL and press Load to pull its <loc>
entries.
      3.  
    3. Press Build redirect map. Each old URL gets a suggested destination, a
            confidence tier, and a plain-English reason. Use Load sample first if you just
            want to see it work.
      4.  
    4. Work the list: change any pick from the dropdown, click 410 to mark a page
            gone, or hit Accept all Exact + Strong to lock in the confident rows and focus
            on the rest. The unmatched and 410 filters isolate what still
            needs a decision.
      5.  
    5. Export to Apache .htaccess, nginx, Cloudflare
_redirects/Bulk Redirects, or CSV — and optionally
Check destinations are live 200s before you ship.
      6.  
     
     
    What the results mean
     
    Each row carries a confidence tier and a status. The summary pills tally them:
     
       
    • Exact (green) — the path is identical, or identical once the file extension is
            ignored (/about-us.html → /about-us). Trust these.
      •  
    • Strong (blue) — a matching last slug segment, a shared numeric ID, or a match
            asserted by one of your pattern rules. Very likely correct; skim them.
      •  
    • Fuzzy (amber) — the whole path is similar in tokens and scored at or
            above your accept threshold. Plausible, but review each one.
      •  
    • Unmatched (red) — no candidate cleared the bar (a below-threshold Weak best is
            demoted here too). These need a manual pick, content matching, or a 410.
      •  
    • Already exists (grey) — the old URL is also in your new list, so no redirect is
            needed; it is dimmed and excluded from the map.
      •  
    • 410 Gone (purple) — you flagged the page as retired; it exports as a kill-list
            entry, not a redirect.
      •  
    • In a loop (purple, left-barred) — chain flattening found the target itself
            redirects back, which would create a loop. Fix the destination before shipping.
      •  
     
    
When you run Check destinations are live 200s, each destination also gets a small
          badge: 200 (clean), N redirects → … (you're mapping to a redirect,
          not the final URL), or 404/unreachable (a broken destination to fix first).

     
    How it works
     
    
The matching engine runs entirely in your browser. Both lists are normalised first — optionally
          treating /a and /a/ as equal, comparing paths case-insensitively, stripping
          tracking params (utm, gclid, fbclid), and ignoring file extensions. Then each old URL runs a matcher
          cascade, strongest first: exact path, exact path minus extension, last-slug match, numeric-ID
          extraction, and finally whole-path token similarity. The first matcher that fires sets the tier; a
          below-threshold token best is demoted to unmatched rather than shown as a shaky guess.

     
    The optional trailing-slash normalisation is migration matching only: it lets /a
and /a/ represent the same content candidate. The Redirect Chain Mapper keeps them
          distinct because its job is to expose an actual slash redirect hop.
     
    
After matching, a chain-flattening pass detects cases where an old URL points at another old URL and
          rewrites the map to the final destination (or flags a genuine loop). Correct a row by hand and the
          tool offers to induce a pattern rule — e.g. /blog/* → /articles/* — and apply it
          to every similar row at once. The only server calls are opt-in: sitemap import, Tier 2 content
          matching (fetches title/H1/description only, live for new URLs and from Wayback or Common Crawl for dead old ones),
          and the destination-liveness check.

     
    Features
     
       
    • Calibrated confidence tiers (Exact, Strong, Fuzzy, Weak) with a plain reason per row, not a bare
            percentage.
      •  
    • A first-class unmatched bucket and a 410 kill-list so retired
            pages never get silently dropped or dumped on the homepage.
      •  
    • Per-row override dropdown with alternates, plus Accept all Exact + Strong to
            clear the easy rows in one click.
      •  
    • Pattern rules (wildcard or regex) with a live match-count preview, auto-detected directory remaps,
            and correction-driven rule induction.
      •  
    • Import from CSV/TXT upload or a sitemap URL; adjustable normalisation and fuzzy-accept threshold.
      •  
    • Optional Tier 2 content matching and a destination-liveness check that reuses the bulk status
            checker.
      •  
    • Exports to Apache .htaccess, nginx, Cloudflare _redirects and Bulk
            Redirects, and CSV — ordered specific → general, with self-redirect no-ops dropped.
      •  
    • Autosaves to your browser; download/import the whole project as JSON.
      •  
     
    Limitations
     
    
It matches on URL structure, not meaning — two unrelated pages that happen to share a slug can
          match, which is why Fuzzy rows are flagged for review. It does not crawl your site to discover URLs
          (paste or import them). Sitemap imports follow nested indexes within explicit depth, document, and URL caps.
          The destination check and content matching are capped
          per run and only reach public URLs. And it builds the map — it doesn't deploy the redirects;
          you export the rules and add them to your server or CDN.

     
    Frequently asked questions
     
    What is a redirect map?
    A redirect map is a list that pairs every old URL with the new URL it should 301 redirectA 301 redirect is the HTTP status code for a permanent move: it tells browsers and search engines a URL has moved for good, and it's the strongest signal for consolidating a page's ranking signals onto the new URL. Google says permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank. to after a site migrationA site migration is any significant change to a website's URL structure, domain, platform, protocol, or hosting that can affect how search engines crawl, index, and rank it. The risk scales with how much you change at once. or restructure. It is the deliverable you hand to whoever configures the redirects, and getting it right is what preserves rankings and stops visitors hitting 404s. This tool builds that list for you by matching your old URLs to your new ones and scoring each pairing so you know which rows to trust and which to review.
    How does it decide which old URL matches which new URL?
    It runs a cascade of matchers, strongest first: identical path (Exact), identical path ignoring the file extension (Exact), a matching last slug segment or a shared numeric ID (Strong), then token similarity of the whole path (Fuzzy above your threshold, Weak below it). The first matcher that fires sets the tier, and the row shows the plain reason — for example "slug match" or "shared ID token 482". You can override any pick from the dropdown, and correcting one row offers to generalise the fix into a pattern rule for similar URLs.
    Is my URL list uploaded anywhere?
    No. Parsing, normalisation, matching, chain-flattening and every export run entirely in your browser, and your project autosaves to that browser only. The only network calls are optional and clearly opt-in: importing a sitemap by URL, the Tier 2 "match remaining by content" step, and the destination-liveness check. If you paste your URLs and export, nothing leaves your machine.
    What should I do with the unmatched URLs?
    Unmatched rows are the whole point of the tool being loud about them — they are the old URLs with no confident new equivalent, and they are exactly what you would otherwise miss. For each one, either pick a destination manually from the dropdown, run Tier 2 content matching to get suggestions, or mark it 410 GoneA 410 Gone status code tells search engines a page was intentionally and permanently removed, prompting slightly faster de-indexing than a standard 404. if the page genuinely has no replacement. Leaving them unmatched means those URLs 404 after launch.
    When should I use a 410 instead of a 301?
    Use a 301 when the old page has a real equivalent on the new site. Use 410 Gone when the content is genuinely retired with no replacement — a discontinued product, an old campaign page, thin content you are pruning. A 410 tells search engines the URL is intentionally gone so they drop it faster than a soft 404A soft 404 is a URL that returns a success status code (usually 200 OK) even though the page is empty, missing, or shows a 'not found' message. It isn't a status code a server sends — it's a label search engines apply after comparing the response code against the rendered content, and they treat the page like a 404 for indexing., and it keeps you from redirecting dozens of dead pages to the homepage, which Google treats as a soft 404 anyway. The tool exports 410 rows as a separate kill-list.
     
         
     Local data 
    Saved targets, named lists, and recent check summaries remain only in this browser.
     
       
     
        
     
     
            
    Next stepHTTP Status & Redirect Checker — verify it with a direct check.

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    Where this tool helps
    Common use cases
    Plan a site migration
    Match old and new URL lists into a proposed 301 map with confidence tiers and plain-language reasons.
    Resolve unmatched URLs
    Review uncertain rows, override weak suggestions, and separate genuine removals into a 410 kill list.
    Prevent redirect chains
    Flatten mappings before launch so the generated rules do not create avoidable multi-hop paths.
    Export platform-ready rules
    Create Apache, nginx, or Cloudflare output after a human confirms the mapping and edge cases.
    Watch the full workflow
    Redirect Map Builder walkthrough
    Read the transcript
    
      
      
    
        
    Redirect Map Builder
    
        
    
        
    A migration can lose users and rankings when old U-R-Ls land on errors or irrelevant pages. I’ll show you when this builder helps, how to load and normalize lists, read the real sample map, review confidence tiers, handle unmatched and retired pages, export safely, understand limitations, and verify the deployment.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 1
    
        
    
        
    This tool proposes one destination for each old U-R-L, explains the structural evidence, and isolates rows that need a human decision. Use it for domain moves, platform migrations, taxonomy changes, product retirement, content consolidation, historical four-oh-fours, and redirect-map quality review.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 2
    
        
    
        
    Paste or upload the full old set from crawls, analytics, Search Console, backlinks, logs, and historical sitemaps. Add the canonical live new set from staging crawls or sitemaps. Missing inputs cannot be mapped, so reconcile counts and normalize domains before judging match quality.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 3
    
        
    
        
    Select Load sample to populate old and new lists and run the actual structural matcher. Your own pasted matching stays in the browser. Sitemap import, destination checks, and content matching are explicit network actions; the Turnstile challenge is excluded from this capture.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 4
    
        
    
        
    Normalization can treat trailing slashes as equal, compare paths without case, remove tracking parameters, ignore file extensions, and set the fuzzy threshold. Match the choices to the planned routing behavior. Normalization helps find candidates, but it must not hide real redirect hops or case-sensitive server behavior.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 5
    
        
    
        
    The summary counts Exact, Strong, Fuzzy, unmatched, already-existing, four-ten, and loop states. Filter by tier, status, review decision, search text, or traffic priority. Accepting Exact and Strong in bulk can speed review, but high-value destinations still deserve sampling and intent checks.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 6
    
        
    
        
    Each row shows the old U-R-L, proposed destination, tier, alternatives, and a plain reason such as exact path, shared slug, or numeric I-D. Raw similarity scores order candidates; they are not confidence percentages. Override any wrong choice and inspect the evidence before accepting it.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 7
    
        
    
        
    Exact means the path matches after selected normalization. Strong uses a slug, numeric I-D, or explicit pattern rule. Fuzzy is plausible but requires review. Already exists needs no redirect. A loop must be repaired. A high structural tier still does not prove equivalent content or user intent.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 8
    
        
    
        
    Unmatched is a required decision queue, not a failure to hide. Choose a true equivalent manually, use capped metadata matching for a suggestion, create suitable replacement content, or mark four-ten when the page is intentionally retired. Do not redirect unrelated pages to the homepage; that creates poor journeys and soft-four-oh-four risk.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 9
    
        
    
        
    Wildcard and regular-expression rules can transform repeated directory structures before matching. Preview the match count, test boundary cases, and keep specific rules before general ones. A pattern that looks efficient can redirect thousands of unrelated U-R-Ls, so derive it from reviewed examples and validate the output.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 10
    
        
    
        
    Export reviewed rows to Apache, nginx, Cloudflare, or C-S-V formats. The builder orders specific rules before general ones, removes self-redirects, preserves four-ten decisions when supported, and can save the project and an audit baseline. Confirm your platform’s escaping, precedence, and deployment syntax.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 11
    
        
    
        
    The matcher compares U-R-L structure, not page meaning, and it cannot discover missing inventory. Network-assisted checks are capped and limited to public targets. Sitemap imports have depth and size limits. The tool builds rules but does not deploy them, so server behavior and cache layers remain outside the map.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Step 12
    
        
    
        
    Record each source, target, reason, tier, reviewer, intent decision, traffic or link priority, and four-ten rationale. Check destinations return final two-hundreds, stage the rules, crawl every old U-R-L, flatten chains, eliminate loops, and review likely soft four-oh-fours. After launch, monitor logs, Search Console, backlinks, rankings, and unexpected errors.
    
      
    
      
    
        
    Review the map, deploy it, then test every hop.
    
        
    
        
    Export only reviewed decisions, deploy them in staging, and test every important old U-R-L through its complete redirect chain. Fix loops, chains, broken destinations, and soft-four-oh-fours, launch with monitoring, and compare crawl, index, traffic, and error evidence after the migration.
    
      
    
    
     
             
     
    Common issues & how to fix them
     
       
    •  Warning Legacy URL has no redirect match Fix: Choose the closest destination with equivalent intent and content, or deliberately return 410 when no useful replacement exists. 
    •  Information Legacy URL already exists on the destination site Fix: Do not redirect a legacy URL that already resolves on the destination site; keep it live or explicitly decide which version should be canonical. 
    •  Error Proposed map creates a redirect loop Fix: Change one side of the proposed circular mapping so every source points to a destination that never redirects back. 
    •  Error Proposed destination creates a redirect chain Fix: Replace the proposed destination with the chain’s final live URL before exporting the redirect map. 
    •  Warning Redirect match confidence is low Fix: Choose a verified equivalent destination manually or mark the old URL 410 when no replacement exists. 
    •  Warning Multiple destinations have similar match confidence Fix: Review the equally ranked candidates and manually select the destination that preserves the old page’s intent. 
    •  Warning Multiple legacy URLs map to one destination Fix: Confirm each consolidation is intentional and maps to a true equivalent rather than a generic page. 
    •  Warning Matched pages have weak content similarity Fix: Compare the old and proposed pages’ title, H1, and main topic, then choose the closest true replacement. 
      •