URL Status & Redirect Checker

Check thousands of URLs in one run and see which ones are broken, which ones redirect, and where they end up. For every URL you get the HTTP status, the full redirect chain, the final URL and the response time.

What you get

• Broken links: 404, 410, 5xx, DNS errors, timeouts and TLS errors, each with a clear error code.
• Redirect chains: every hop with its status code (301, 302, 307, 308), redirect loops detected.
• Final URL: where the link really ends up, and whether it ends on HTTPS.
• Response time in milliseconds and the content type.

Typical uses: checking links before and after a site migration, finding broken outbound links, checking that old URLs redirect in one hop, monitoring a list of important pages.

How it works

The checker sends a HEAD request and falls back to GET for servers that do not answer HEAD properly. It never downloads page content.

It is a polite client:

• it reads each site's robots.txt and skips URLs the site does not allow,
• it sends one request at a time per host, with a pause between them,
• it identifies itself with a clear user agent.

Input

{
  "urls": ["https://example.com/", "http://example.com/old-page"],
  "maxRedirects": 10,
  "timeoutSecs": 15,
  "maxConcurrency": 10,
  "perHostDelayMs": 500
}

Output

One item per URL:

{
  "url": "http://example.com/old-page",
  "ok": true,
  "status": 200,
  "final_url": "https://example.com/new-page",
  "redirects": 2,
  "redirect_chain": [
    {"url": "http://example.com/old-page", "status": 301},
    {"url": "https://example.com/old-page", "status": 308}
  ],
  "response_ms": 412,
  "content_type": "text/html",
  "https": true,
  "error": "",
  "error_detail": "",
  "checked_at": "2026-10-18T09:00:00Z"
}

Error codes: timeout, dns_error, tls_error, connection_error, protocol_error, too_many_redirects, blocked_by_robots, robots_unavailable, invalid_url, not_public_address.

Pricing

You pay per URL checked. Invalid URLs and addresses that are not on the public internet are listed in the results free of charge. Set a maximum cost for the run, and the checker stops at your limit.

Use it from code or AI agents

Run it through the Apify API, schedule it, connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n, or call it from AI agents through Apify's MCP server.

FAQ

Does it check links inside the pages? No, it checks the URLs you give it. To get all URLs of a site first, use the Sitemap URL Extractor & Validator from the same author.

Why was a URL skipped with blocked_by_robots? The site's robots.txt does not allow automated clients on that path, and this checker respects that.

Provider, privacy and fair use

Provider: HelveticLabs, sole proprietorship of Marvin Krieg, c/o SwissMailBox 170, 12 Rue Le Corbusier, 1208 Genève, Switzerland. E-mail: contact@helveticlabs.org. Imprint: https://www.helveticlabs.org/imprint

Privacy: This Actor runs on the Apify platform, in your Apify account. It processes only the URLs or domains you enter and the public technical data the checked servers return (status codes, headers, certificates, DNS records, sitemap URLs, links). It does not collect personal data: it never stores or returns page text (where a page's HTML is read, it is read in memory only, to find links and measure tags), and it leaves out e-mail addresses, cookie names and values and similar values. Your input and results stay in your Apify account and are stored by Apify under its own terms (https://apify.com/privacy-policy). The provider sees only the usage statistics Apify shows to Actor authors (such as the number of users and runs), not your input or results, unless you share a run for support. Questions about privacy: contact@helveticlabs.org.

Fair use: Check only sites you own or may check. Do not use the results to attack systems or people. The Actor respects robots.txt, identifies itself, and keeps a polite pace per site.

No warranty: The results are automated checks and can be incomplete. They are not a penetration test, legal advice or a compliance certificate.