A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to a second URL that itself redirects to a third, creating a sequence of two or more hops before the final destination is reached. Chains commonly arise after multiple site migrations, URL restructuring, or CMS changes where old redirects are never cleaned up. They introduce several problems: each additional hop adds latency for users and crawlers; Googlebot may abandon a chain if it exceeds a certain number of redirects, leaving the final destination page uncrawled; and link equity (PageRank) is believed to diminish incrementally with each hop rather than passing cleanly as a single 301 would. Best practice is to collapse redirect chains so that any legacy URL points directly to its final destination in a single step.