URL Health Checker – Status, Redirects & SSL Expiry (bulk)

Check thousands of URLs in one run and get, for every URL, the HTTP status, the full redirect chain, response time, SSL certificate expiry, HTTP→HTTPS redirect and HSTS – plus a clear list of problems so you can fix what matters first.

Paste full URLs or bare domains (example.com is checked over https). Duplicates are removed and invalid lines are skipped for free.

What you get for each URL

Field	Meaning
statusCode, category	Final status and a simple result: ok, client_error, server_error, redirect_error, timeout, dns_error, ssl_error, connection_error
redirectChain, redirectCount, finalUrl	Every hop with its status code (301/302/307/308) and where it leads; loops and too-long chains are detected
responseTimeMs	Time to the first response
ssl	Certificate validity, issuer, expiry date and days remaining
httpToHttps, hsts	Does http redirect to https? Is HSTS set?
problems	client_error_404, server_error_503, ssl_invalid, ssl_expiring_soon, no_https_redirect, long_redirect_chain, slow_response, missing_hsts, …

Typical uses

• SEO and site migrations: verify that old URLs redirect correctly (and in one hop), find 404s and redirect chains.
• Link and backlink audits: check lists of outgoing or incoming links for broken targets.
• Monitoring: schedule a daily run with Output only URLs with problems and get only what broke – including SSL certificates expiring soon.
• Agencies and IT teams: check all client websites at once.

Input example

{
  "urls": ["https://apify.com", "http://example.com", "example.org/old-page"],
  "onlyProblems": false,
  "sslWarningDays": 30
}

Output example (shortened)

{
  "url": "http://example.com/",
  "finalUrl": "https://www.example.com/",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "category": "ok",
  "redirectCount": 2,
  "redirectChain": [
    { "url": "http://example.com/", "statusCode": 301, "location": "https://example.com/" },
    { "url": "https://example.com/", "statusCode": 301, "location": "https://www.example.com/" }
  ],
  "responseTimeMs": 182,
  "ssl": { "valid": true, "daysRemaining": 64, "issuer": "Let's Encrypt" },
  "httpToHttps": true,
  "hsts": true,
  "problems": []
}

A run summary (counts per result category, problems, invalid inputs) is saved to the key-value store as OUTPUT.

How it works

• Lightweight HTTP requests – no browser, no proxies, so runs are fast and cheap.
• HEAD first; servers that reject HEAD are retried with GET. Response bodies are never downloaded.
• Redirects are followed manually so every hop is recorded.
• Polite by design: at most 2 parallel requests to the same host, honest User-Agent.

Pricing

Free during the launch period – you only pay Apify platform usage, which is tiny for this Actor. A small pay-per-URL price is planned for 2027; any change is announced in Apify Console in advance. Invalid inputs are always free.

Limitations

• The Actor checks only the URLs you provide; it does not crawl websites.
• Some sites block automated requests or answer differently to non-browser clients (e.g. 403). Such results are reported as they are.
• Results reflect the moment of the check from Apify's servers.

FAQ

Can I check only domains? Yes – example.com becomes https://example.com/.

Does it follow JavaScript or meta-refresh redirects? No, only HTTP redirects (3xx with a Location header).

Is this legal? The Actor makes the same kind of request a browser makes to URLs you supply, without logging in, bypassing protections or downloading content.

Support

Built and maintained by VEmKa (Czech Republic, EU). Questions or ideas? Open an issue on the Issues tab – support in English and Czech.