The redirect chain is the evidence

Every HTTP redirect — a 3xx response with a Location header — met while checking a link or remote image from your delivered test email. The chain starts at the URL in the email, usually the platform's tracking-rewritten link, and ends at the final HTTP destination. The chain itself becomes part of the record: which URL was asked, what it answered, and where it pointed next.

Redirects are followed up to 3 hops, and every hop is recorded. Before any hop is followed, the next URL goes through the same screening as the original: protected-action classification and network safety. A hop toward a recognized action — an unsubscribe, a sign-in, a purchase — stops the chain there; the resource is marked Protected and the action is not opened. A hop into a private or internal address stops the chain by policy, and the resource is marked Blocked. Chains are never a way around the rules that applied to the first request.

An HTTPS link that redirects to a plain HTTP hop gets that downgrade recorded as a warning, so the resource is reported Warning even when its final destination answers 2xx. Faulted chains are reported Broken with a named error code: a hop that circles back records redirect_loop, a 3xx response with no Location header records redirect_without_location, and a chain that needs more than 3 hops records too_many_redirects.

The whole chain runs inside one resource budget — 2 s connect, 5 s read, 10 s total — so a slow chain is recorded Broken with its error code rather than waited on, and nothing is retried. Each hop connects to an address resolved and screened first, with TLS verification on for every HTTPS request; the full request path is in the security model. Where the chain ends also matters beyond reachability: tracking review runs on the final URL after redirects, so it judges the UTM values the destination actually receives — duplicate keys, blank values and non-canonical casing are recorded per link, and missing keys are flagged where your workspace defines required keys — campaign tracking review.