# Website Link, Redirect & SEO Auditor (`springlike_meadowland/website-qa-auditor`) Actor

Audit public website pages and sitemaps for broken URLs, redirects, titles, canonicals, and robots meta. Get one evidenced row per checked URL with bounded crawl limits.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/springlike\_meadowland/website-qa-auditor.md
- **Developed by:** [Akshay Aggarwal](https://apify.com/springlike_meadowland) (community)
- **Categories:** SEO tools, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.00 / 1,000 checked urls

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Website Link, Redirect & SEO Auditor

Check a website release or migration for broken URLs, redirects, missing HTML titles and canonical links. Start with up to 10 public pages or XML sitemaps. Export one row per URL actually checked, with HTTP status, redirect chain, final URL, referring pages discovered before the check, response time, and evidence for each issue.

### Quick start

```json
{
  "startUrls": [{"url": "https://example.com/"}],
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxChecks": 25,
  "maxDepth": 2,
  "checkExternalLinks": false
}
```

For the public Example Domain page, a check returns `title: "Example Domain"` and a `missing_canonical` issue. Its link to `iana.org` is skipped with the default `checkExternalLinks: false`.

```json
{"url":"https://example.com/","title":"Example Domain","canonical_url":null,"issues":[{"code":"missing_canonical","evidence":"No valid link rel=canonical"}]}
```

The snippet shows the source-backed fields; full rows also include HTTP status, final URL, redirect chain, referrers, robots meta, and measured response time.

### What it checks

The crawler checks each normalized URL once. It follows at most five HTTP redirects, then records the final status and URL. It parses HTML links, title, canonical link and meta robots; XML sitemap `loc` entries can seed more checks. Same-origin HTML pages and sitemaps can enqueue links through `maxDepth`. External links are checked only if enabled and are never crawled for further links. A 4xx status other than access/challenge codes is reported as `broken_http`; 5xx as `server_error`. HTTP 401, 403, 407 and 429 are classified as `access_or_challenge`. DNS, TLS, timeout, blocked private address and oversized response failures are `unreachable` with evidence, rather than a fabricated 404.

This is deterministic technical QA on anonymous public HTTP(S) responses. It does not run a browser, assess visual layout or Core Web Vitals, verify search indexing, or promise SEO rank. Login, JavaScript-only links, robots directives beyond the exposed `meta_robots` field, and nonstandard ports are outside scope. It does not guess a URL's status when a fetch fails.

### Limits and partial results

`startUrls` accepts 1–10 URL strings or `{ "url": ... }` objects. `maxPages` defaults to 10 and permits 1–1000 same-origin checks. `maxChecks` defaults to 25 and permits 1–1500 total checked URLs. `maxDepth` defaults to 2 and permits 0–5. Responses are capped at 1 MB, each request has a 12-second timeout, the Actor has a 100-second internal deadline, and the transport allows at most 3000 requests including redirect hops. Redirects, page caps, and spending limits can produce partial coverage. `OUTPUT` in the default key-value store reports fetched, saved, skipped, error and duplicate counts, request count, and reached limits. The dataset contains only checked URL rows; no summary or placeholder rows.

`referring_pages` captures referring URLs known when the row is saved. Later-discovered duplicate links can increase the `duplicates` summary without changing an already-saved dataset row. Sitemaps themselves receive a URL-check row when fetched; their entries are separately checked subject to the same limits. Every checked URL may make multiple HTTP requests if it redirects, so the `requests` count can exceed the URL-check count.

### Billing

The billing unit is **one saved checked URL**, event `url-check`. The current price is shown by Apify when you run the Actor. A discovered but unfetched link is not billed. The Actor stops checking URLs when the run's charge limit is exhausted.

### Output fields

Each dataset row has `url`, `referring_pages[]`, `status_code` (null if no HTTP response), `redirect_chain[]`, `final_url`, `title`, `canonical_url`, `meta_robots`, `issues[]` with `code` and `evidence`, and `response_time_ms` (null if no response). `title`, canonical, and robots are null for non-HTML responses. Empty `issues` means none of the implemented checks found an issue, not a full SEO pass.

### Access and safety

The Actor verifies HTTPS certificates and rejects private/local destinations, credentials, unusual ports, unsafe redirects, response bodies over 1 MB, and URLs over 2048 characters. It does not use AI or paid external APIs to produce checks.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

1–10 public HTTP(S) pages or XML sitemaps.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Caps same-origin URL checks; small sample by default.

## `maxChecks` (type: `integer`):

Caps saved URL checks including external links when enabled.

## `maxDepth` (type: `integer`):

Follow same-origin links up to this many steps from each starting URL.

## `checkExternalLinks` (type: `boolean`):

Check discovered external links without crawling their pages. Redirects may still end on an external URL.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/"
    }
  ],
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxChecks": 25,
  "maxDepth": 2,
  "checkExternalLinks": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://example.com/"
        }
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("springlike_meadowland/website-qa-auditor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://example.com/" }] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("springlike_meadowland/website-qa-auditor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://example.com/"
    }
  ]
}' |
apify call springlike_meadowland/website-qa-auditor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,springlike_meadowland/website-qa-auditor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/1aYsmn9vpfFENDVmh/builds/OgpydbhmdyYNY6pS8/openapi.json