Percent-encoding redirect test
A client site's /zh/ pages redirect an RFC-3986-normalized (uppercase)
percent-encoded URL back to the site's native lowercase form — fine for a browser,
but it sends Python's requests/urllib3 into an infinite
redirect loop, because those libraries re-uppercase the redirect target on every hop.
Open question: does Googlebot do the same thing? Two isolated test pages, each logging every raw request it receives:
- Scenario t1 — a normal page with a correct, matching canonical. Its uppercase sibling isn't linked anywhere; if Google ever requests it anyway, that's Google re-casing on its own initiative.
- Scenario t2 — an identical page, except its own
<link rel="canonical">deliberately points at the redirecting uppercase form. This tests whether Google's own canonical-verification walks it into the same trap, independent of any re-casing behavior.
Both scenarios' uppercase forms return a 301 back to the lowercase original, exactly mirroring the client site's behavior.