How do chained redirects affect email delivery and sender reputation?

Email marketer from StackOverflow notes that chained redirects can increase latency and slow down the user experience when someone clicks a link in an email, which can lead to lower engagement and potentially damage sender reputation due to poor user signals.

Email marketer from SenderLane explains that excessive redirects, especially when using URL shorteners, can make it difficult for mailbox providers to assess the true destination of a link, leading to deliverability issues if the shortener service is associated with spam or malicious activity.

Email marketer from Gmass notes that it's best practice to keep to one redirect to prevent issues with deliverability and sender reputation.

Email marketer from Neil Patel Blog explains that excessive redirects can slow down page load times, which indirectly impacts SEO and user experience, potentially affecting sender reputation if associated with email marketing practices. Too many redirects can confuse search engines.

Email marketer from EmailToolTester shares that using cloaked affiliate links with multiple redirects can raise red flags with email providers, especially if the final destination is different from what the initial link suggests, negatively affecting deliverability.

Marketer from Email Geeks recommends avoiding multiple chained domains as they can be seen as a negative reputation hit.

Email marketer from Reddit shares that chained redirects, especially in affiliate marketing, can trigger spam filters and negatively impact deliverability if the redirect domains have poor reputations or are associated with shady practices.

Email marketer from Litmus shares that using too many tracking parameters and redirects can make URLs appear suspicious to spam filters. They recommend keeping URLs clean and minimizing unnecessary redirects to improve deliverability.

Email marketer from Mailjet shares that using multiple redirects can make it harder for email providers to determine the final destination of a link, potentially leading to suspicion and affecting deliverability, especially if intermediate domains have a poor reputation.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that using link cloaking techniques (often involving redirects) can negatively impact sender reputation because it obscures the true destination of the link, and recipients may be directed to unexpected or untrustworthy content. Also, it makes it difficult for filters to assess the safety of the content.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that Enterprise filters do it a lot, but it's expensive to do at scale so many consumer providers may not do it consistently, suggesting they might track the reputation of just the first link, sample redirection chains, or only dig deeper if there are other issues with the message.

Expert from Spam Resource suggests that if redirect chains involve domains with poor reputation, it can negatively affect deliverability and sender reputation. This is because email filters often assess the reputation of all domains involved in the redirect chain, not just the final destination.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that each hop in a redirect chain might have a different reputation tied to it, making things like affiliate mail more complex.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that the effect of chained redirects depends on whether the provider mechanically follows the links. If they do, any problems with the URLs or content at each step could cause issues, similar to shared, abused resources. Also adds that some providers may not check the entire chain and may only check the first redirect.

Documentation from SparkPost explains that link cloaking (which often involves redirects) can hide the true destination of a link, making it difficult for recipients and email providers to assess its safety. This can lead to filtering and deliverability problems.

Documentation from RFC Editor details the technical specifications of HTTP redirection, noting that user agents (including email clients) are expected to handle redirects, but excessive redirects can lead to performance issues and a degraded user experience, potentially impacting sender reputation if links in emails consistently cause such issues.

Documentation from Google Search Central explains that while redirects are generally fine, long redirect chains (more than 5-10 hops) can be problematic for search engine crawlers, potentially affecting how quickly and efficiently your content is indexed, which can indirectly affect sender reputation if your email campaigns link to such content.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that its SmartScreen filter checks the reputation of URLs, and multiple redirects can make it harder to assess the final destination's reputation, potentially leading to false positives or negatives, which affects email deliverability.