Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker

Check thousands of URLs for broken links, redirect chains and HTTP status — and see every hop, not just where you landed.

Most checkers follow redirects silently and report the final code. This one records each hop, so you can see that a link 301s to http://, then to www, then to the real page — three round-trips that cost you crawl budget and link equity.

What you get

{
  "url": "http://github.com",
  "ok": true,
  "finalStatus": 200,
  "statusClass": "ok",
  "finalUrl": "https://github.com/",
  "redirectCount": 1,
  "httpsUpgraded": true,
  "crossDomain": false,
  "redirectLoop": false,
  "responseTimeMs": 412,
  "redirectChain": [
    { "url": "http://github.com", "status": 301, "location": "https://github.com/" },
    { "url": "https://github.com/", "status": 200, "location": null }
  ]
}

statusClass buckets every result into ok, redirect, not-found, blocked, rate-limited, client-error, server-error or unreachable, so you can filter without writing status-code logic.

Main use cases

• Broken-link audits across a whole site or backlink profile.
• Migration QA. After a replatform, confirm every old URL lands where it should — and in one hop.
• Redirect-chain cleanup. redirectCount > 1 is the list to fix.
• HTTPS coverage. httpsUpgraded shows which links still start on http://.
• Redirect-loop detection, reported explicitly rather than as a timeout.
• Affiliate and outbound link monitoring on a schedule.

Pricing

Event	Price	When
URL checked	$0.001	One URL checked, including every redirect hop

Not charged for URLs that could not be parsed.

1,000 URLs = $1.00. 10,000 URLs = $10.00.

For comparison at the same volume: smart-digital/complete-seo-audit-tool charges $0.04 per page — 40× more, though it runs a broader audit — and automation-lab/http-status-checker adds $0.035 per run on top of its per-URL price. This Actor has no per-run fee at all.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Notes
urls	array	required	Bare domains work: example.com → https://example.com. Up to 20,000.
maxRedirects	integer	10	Hop ceiling. Loops are detected separately.
method	select	GET	HEAD is faster but some servers answer it incorrectly.
concurrency	integer	8	Parallel requests.

Limitations

• No JavaScript. A page that redirects via window.location or a meta-refresh tag reports the status the server returned. Server-side redirects (301/302/307/308) are what this measures.
• Bot protection reports as blocked (401/403) rather than being bypassed. That is the honest result, not a failure to work around.
• Response times include network variance and are indicative, not a benchmark.

Related Actors

• Link Preview API — OpenGraph metadata for the URLs that come back ok.
• Website Brand & Favicon Extractor — brand assets for the same URL list.

Reliability

• Retries on 429 and 5xx with exponential backoff; permanent 4xx errors are not retried.
• Bad input is reported and skipped, never charged.
• One failing target never aborts the rest of the run.
• Concurrency is bounded and configurable — this work is network-bound, so parallel requests, not memory, are what control speed.

Data source and responsible use

Reads only publicly available data. No authentication bypass, no CAPTCHA circumvention, no browser automation.

Not affiliated with any of the services checked.

How to use Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker

1. Open Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker on Apify Store and click Try for free.
2. Fill in the input (the form is prefilled with a working example) and click Start.
3. Watch results appear in the Output tab, then download them as JSON, CSV, Excel or HTML, or read them through the API.
4. Optional: save the input as a task and add a schedule to run it automatically, or connect it to your tools with integrations and webhooks.

Output example

Each result is one dataset item. A real item from a test run (long fields shortened):

{
  "url": "https://github.com/",
  "ok": true,
  "finalStatus": 200,
  "statusClass": "ok",
  "finalUrl": "https://github.com/",
  "redirectCount": 0,
  "httpsUpgraded": false,
  "crossDomain": false,
  "redirectLoop": false,
  "exceededMaxRedirects": false,
  "contentType": "text/html; charset=utf-8",
  "responseTimeMs": 84
}

Use Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker with AI agents (MCP)

Give Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code or any MCP client this Actor as a tool through the hosted Apify MCP server. The agent sees the input fields with descriptions and example values, runs the Actor, and reads the results.

MCP server URL (this Actor only):

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker

Claude Code:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker" --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN"

Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop and other clients (mcp.json or the client's MCP settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

Clients that support sign-in (such as Claude.ai connectors) can use the URL without a token and log in to Apify instead. Get your token in Apify Console → Settings → API & Integrations, or generate a ready config for your client at mcp.apify.com. In the agent the tool is named technicaldost--bulk-url-status-redirect-checker; ask it, for example, to "run Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker with {"urls": ["https://github.com", "http://github.com", "https://httpbin.org/status/404"]}".

AI agents without an Apify account can also run and pay for this Actor per request with x402 agentic payments.

Run Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker via API

Run the Actor and get its results in one call (replace YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/technicaldost~bulk-url-status-redirect-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"urls": ["https://github.com", "http://github.com", "https://httpbin.org/status/404"]}'

Python (pip install apify-client):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker").call(run_input={"urls": ["https://github.com", "http://github.com", "https://httpbin.org/status/404"]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

JavaScript / TypeScript (npm install apify-client):

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker').call({"urls": ["https://github.com", "http://github.com", "https://httpbin.org/status/404"]});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Long runs: start them with POST /v2/acts/technicaldost~bulk-url-status-redirect-checker/runs and fetch the dataset when the run finishes, or receive a webhook.

Integrations

Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker works with Make, Zapier, n8n, LangChain, Google Sheets, Slack, GitHub and webhooks. Schedule runs in Apify Console and send new results straight to your apps, spreadsheets or AI pipelines.

FAQ

Can I use Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker with AI agents like Claude or ChatGPT?

Yes. Connect the Apify MCP server with ?tools=technicaldost/bulk-url-status-redirect-checker (see above) and the agent can run the Actor and read its results on its own.

Can I call Bulk URL Status & Redirect Chain Checker from my own code?

Yes. Use the REST API, or the official Python and JavaScript clients shown above. Results are available as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML.

How do I run it on a schedule?

Save your input as a task in Apify Console and add a schedule (for example, daily). Use webhooks or integrations to send each run's results onward.

Is it legal to use this Actor?

It works with publicly available data. Make sure your use complies with the source website's terms and with data protection laws such as GDPR, especially for personal data.

Something doesn't work or I need a feature. What should I do?

Open an issue in the Issues tab on this Actor's page with an example input, and we'll look into it.