Redirection Causes GTMetrix “Minimize redirects” Flag

  • Resolved toad78

    (@toad78)


    4 years, 4 months ago

    This is the first for me on a site, but I’ve used Redirection on MANY other sites and never had this problem:

    I used Redirection to redirect all blog permalinks to a different link. However, after doing this, GTMetrix raised a “Minimize redirects” flag on MANY URLs that are not local to the site. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this happen and not sure how ONE specific redirect could cause this to happen (I’m doubting it, but the client claims it’s because of the plugin and is discouraging any future use of it).

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Plugin Author John Godley

    (@johnny5)

    What is GTMetrix? What does ‘minimize redirects’ mean? Can you give an example (maybe a screenshot) of this?

    Thread Starter toad78

    (@toad78)

    GTMetrix: https://gtmetrix.com
    I’ve provided a screenshot here.

    I fail to see the correlation between this report and the client’s claim that the plugin is the cause of the issue (as I’ve never seen this on any other site I’ve developed and used the Redirection plugin). To me, it looks like a bunch of ad/cookie URLs, but that doesn’t negate the fact that GTMetrix would be triggered when the plugin is enabled and only has one specific rule applied.

    The client disabled the plugin and is using a Rewrite Regex condition instead. Once this was done, the “Minimize redirects” disappeared.

    I hope this is helpful.

    Plugin Author John Godley

    (@johnny5)

    Redirection will only affect the URL that is being redirected. The screenshot seems to show a bunch of redirects bouncing between external ad servers, for which Redirection has no control.

    I’ve tried a couple of random sites in GTMetrix and it reported problems with advert redirects on sites without adverts. It seems like it is confused and reporting things that don’t exist.

    Thread Starter toad78

    (@toad78)

    Like I said, the client makes claim that the Redirection plugin is causing GTMetrix to flag its “Minimize Redirects”, but when she disabled the plugin, it went away. Very odd, indeed, even though those URLs have nothing to do with the redirect I created using the plugin. But it is a hard arguement to prove that this is pure coincidence. Especially since the plugin was disabled and the flag disappeared. So I’m not sure what to make of it, especially since I don’t have issues with the other sites I use this plugin with.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by toad78.
    Plugin Author John Godley

    (@johnny5)

    Sure, and thanks for reporting it. I don’t have any explanation for the behaviour you’ve seen. All I can say is that it appears to be a false positive.

    My quick impression of GTMetrix is that it appears to mis-report things as problems when they are not. Hard to explain to a client though!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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