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meta-refresh.redirect

WarningSEO audit

A <meta http-equiv="refresh"> sends visitors to another URL. Google reads an instant one as a permanent redirect (info) and a delayed one as a temporary redirect (warning), and prefers a redirect from the server.

What to change

Redirect on the server with a 301 (or 308) to the new URL. If the server cannot redirect, set the meta refresh to 0 seconds, which Google reads as a permanent redirect.

The documentation on developers.google.com

A finding of this rule on a page carries the exact edits for that page: the markup it quotes, and what to write instead.

When it runs

Runs on every SEO audit: of a page, a crawl, a build directory or HTML. A warning is a problem that costs a page ranking, clicks or citations. Each finding takes 5 points off the page's score.

The severity here is the rule's usual one: a finding can be raised or lowered when the page gives a reason.

Run it, or skip it

Check a page for this rule alone, after a fix for instance:

npx @rivi-software/agentic-seo-check audit https://example.com --rule meta-refresh.redirect

Or from an assistant, with the MCP tool seo_audit_page:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "rules": [
    "meta-refresh.redirect"
  ]
}

To leave it out of an audit, pass --disable meta-refresh.redirect on the command, or disableRules: ["meta-refresh.redirect"] to a tool.

All 7 rules