A redirect pointed somewhere the scanner will not follow
Updated
Fewer than 1% of the 785 domains we could check get a warning for this. Sample: the first 1,000 domains by rank in the Majestic Million, checked on 2026-10-12. How we measured
What this check looks for
One step of the chain led to an address we refuse to connect to — a private network address, a cloud metadata endpoint, or an internal-only name. We stopped there.
Why it matters
Part of the chain was not measured, so the report is incomplete. More importantly, a public URL that redirects into private address space is the exact shape of an open redirect being used to reach infrastructure that should not be reachable from outside.
When the check passes, your report says: “Every hop led somewhere we were able to follow”.
What it costs your score
When this check fails it removes 12 points from your HTTP score, before the status, confidence and repeat multipliers are applied. HTTP carries a weight of 7 in the overall score.
It shares the http.redirects family ceiling of 45 points: however many findings that family produces, together they cannot remove more than that from HTTP. One underlying problem showing up in several places is still one problem.
- Severity
- medium
- Default confidence
- confirmed
- Status when triggered
- warn
- Deduction
- 12 points
- Family cap
- http.redirects · 45
- Category
- HTTP
- Module
- Http redirects
- Fix owned by
- user
- In the ruleset since
- 2026.09
How to fix it
Make sure no publicly reachable URL redirects into private address space.
It leaves part of the site unmeasurable and is the signature of an open redirect.
Find the rule producing this destination and confirm it was intended.
If the redirect target comes from a request parameter, validate it against an allow-list of permitted destinations rather than a pattern.
If the internal address is deliberate, restrict the endpoint so it is not reachable from outside.
How to confirm it worked
curl -sSI https://‹host›/ | grep -i '^location:' — the target should be a public address
A named slot like ‹domain› — and the braces left in the configuration below — is filled in with your own values when this rule appears on a report.
Remediation by platform
# Two hops at most: HTTPS on the same host first, then the canonical host.
# Each name is written out rather than taken from $host, so no request is redirected
# to a Host value the client made up.
server {
listen 80;
server_name ‹host›;
return 301 https://‹host›$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name www.‹host›;
return 301 https://www.‹host›$request_uri;
}
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name ‹host›;
# The site's ssl_certificate lines belong here too.
add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" always;
return 301 https://www.‹host›$request_uri;
}# Two hops at most: HTTPS on the same host first, then the canonical host.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName ‹host›
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)$ https://‹host›/$1
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.‹host›
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)$ https://www.‹host›/$1
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerName ‹host›
# The site's SSLEngine and certificate lines belong here too.
Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000"
RedirectMatch 301 ^/(.*)$ https://www.‹host›/$1
</VirtualHost>‹host› {
header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000"
redir https://www.‹host›{uri} permanent
}SSL/TLS → Edge Certificates → Always Use HTTPS: on (hop one, the upgrade on the same name).
SSL/TLS → Edge Certificates → HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS): enable, Max Age 12 months; turn on includeSubDomains only once every subdomain serves HTTPS. Hop one exists so that ‹host› sends this header; without it the extra hop buys nothing.
Rules → Overview → Create rule → Redirect Rule: when Hostname equals ‹host› and SSL/HTTPS is on, Dynamic redirect to concat("https://www.‹host›", http.request.uri.path), status 301, preserve query string (hop two).
Then confirm with curl -sSI https://‹host›/ that the 301 carries a Strict-Transport-Security header.
(Dashboard paths and option names as at 2026-10, a dated snapshot; Cloudflare reorganises these pages and may again.)Each starting URL reaches the canonical one in at most two hops, and the bare name sends its own HSTS header on the way, which is the shape the HSTS preload list requires. Add includeSubDomains once every subdomain serves HTTPS. If HSTS preload is not a goal, sending plain HTTP for ‹host› straight to https://www.‹host› is also fine and saves a round trip; the bare name then never sends an HSTS header a browser accepts.
Shown because the response identified Apache. Prefer the virtual host over .htaccess: .htaccess is re-read on every request and its rules run after the virtual host's, which is how these chains get long in the first place. If HSTS preload is not a goal, sending plain HTTP for ‹host› straight to https://www.‹host› is also fine and saves a round trip; the bare name then never sends an HSTS header a browser accepts.
Caddy's automatic HTTPS already answers plain HTTP for ‹host› with a redirect to HTTPS on the same name, so this block is the second hop of the two the preload list expects.
Cloudflare Redirect Rules run at the edge and apply only to requests that arrive through it. An origin reachable directly — by IP, or through a DNS record that is not proxied — still produces the chain measured here. Fix the origin's own configuration as well.
Technical detail
‹detail›
The scanner validates every hop before connecting: scheme, userinfo, hostname, public-suffix, and the resolved address against the private, loopback, link-local, CGNAT and cloud-metadata ranges. A refusal is reported rather than followed. If the destination is genuinely internal, the redirect should not be reachable from the public internet in the first place; if it is unintentional, it is a redirect built from unvalidated input.
Standards and references
Test this on your domain
Run the check that produces this finding, on its own, against any domain.