Too many redirects
Two rules, each convinced the other is wrong, forever.
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS is the site chasing its own tail: rule A sends visitors to a URL that rule B sends back, and browsers give up after twenty laps. Nothing is broken, exactly — two configurations are just having an argument in front of your customers.
Same-day diagnosis. Flat quote before any fix.
What’s actually happening
Redirects come from many hands: the .htaccess file, WordPress's own site-URL settings, security and SSL plugins, the hosting panel, and CDNs like Cloudflare. A loop means two of them disagree — most classically about HTTPS: the CDN talks plain HTTP to your origin, the origin bounces plain HTTP back to HTTPS, and the ping-pong never ends. Cloudflare's 'Flexible SSL' mode plus a force-HTTPS rule is the single most famous recipe.
The www question is the other regular: one rule insists on www, another strips it, and the visitor commutes between the two addresses until the browser calls it. Migrations breed both flavors — old rules surviving alongside new ones, each still enforcing a decision the other reversed.
The usual causes, ranked
After twenty-seven years of these calls, the odds are well mapped. Start at the top.
CDN SSL mode vs. origin HTTPS rules
Cloudflare Flexible SSL with a force-HTTPS origin is the textbook loop. The fix is aligning the SSL mode with what the origin expects — one setting, total cure.
Duplicate force-HTTPS rules
Plugin, .htaccess, and hosting panel all redirecting to HTTPS slightly differently — cooperation until one update changes the phrasing.
www vs. non-www disagreement
WordPress's stored URL says one; a server rule says the other. Visitors bounce between addresses forever.
Leftover migration rules
Old redirects surviving a move, still enforcing the previous site's decisions against the new site's settings.
What you can safely try first
Nothing below can make things worse — that’s the selection criterion. Anything riskier belongs in professional hands, on a backup.
- 1
Try incognito and clear the site's cookies
Browsers cache redirects aggressively — sometimes the loop is already fixed and your cache is replaying it. If incognito works, clear and carry on.
- 2
Note which URLs are in the loop
The address bar flickering between http/https or www/non-www names the argument. That observation is most of the diagnosis.
- 3
If on Cloudflare, check the SSL mode
'Flexible' plus an HTTPS-enforcing origin is the classic. Reading the setting is safe; understand before changing — the right value depends on your origin's certificate.
Stop and call when…
- The rules live in three places (plugin, .htaccess, CDN) and you're not sure who's who — editing blind can deepen the loop
- The loop guards wp-admin too, locking you out of the tools that would fix it
- It followed a migration — the rule archaeology needs someone who's read a lot of old rules
From there it’s our job: same-day look, flat quote, and the $229 flat repair covers most cases of exactly this.
Single Error Fix — buy it now, skip the hunt.
One error, hunted down and fixed — 500s, white screens, redirect loops, broken pages.
Covers one specific error or broken behavior on one site. Diagnosis, the fix, and a plain-English note on what happened. If we can't fix it, you get a full refund.
Questions we hear a lot.
Why does the loop hit some visitors and not others?
Cached redirects: browsers remember 301s, so visitors who arrived during different rule-eras replay different rules. It's also why fixes seem 'not to work' — the loop is dead but browsers are haunted. Clearing the redirect cache (or waiting it out) settles the ghosts.
Did the loop hurt my SEO?
Brief loops, no — Google retries. Extended ones starve the crawl and can drop rankings the way any downtime does. Once untangled, the right redirect chain (one hop, correct destination) actually consolidates your signals better than the pre-loop mess usually did.
What does the flat fix cover?
Mapping every redirect authority (plugin, server, CDN, WordPress settings), finding the argument, ending it with one coherent ruleset, and testing the loop dead across browsers and the CDN. $229, same-day.
Related symptoms & help
Errors travel in packs. If this one visited, check its friends.
End the argument. One ruleset, zero laps.
Send the symptom, get a same-day look and a flat quote from the developer who's fixed this exact thing more times than either of us can count.