Bulk URL Status Checker - Redirect & Broken Link Audit

Check thousands of URLs at once for broken links, redirects, and final destinations - one clean report instead of opening URLs by hand.

This Actor checks URLs in bulk for HTTP status codes, broken links, redirects, final URLs, response times, and redirect chains, and returns a clean CSV/JSON report. Built for SEO audits, site migrations, QA checks, and monitoring workflows.

✅ What you get / ❌ what this isn't

✅ This Actor gives you	❌ This Actor is not
Status code, final URL, full redirect chain	Not a browser - it does not run JavaScript
Broken-link, timeout, and error classification	Not a crawler that discovers new pages
Response time + content type per URL	Not a tool that fails the whole run on one bad URL
One run summary row with totals	Not a single-URL checker you repeat by hand

🔎 What you get

• HTTP status code and status text
• Final URL after redirects
• Full redirect chain (every hop)
• Broken-link classification for 4xx/5xx pages
• Timeout and request-error classification
• Response time in milliseconds
• Content-Type header
• SEO issue flags such as client_error, server_error, long_redirect_chain, final_not_https, non_html_content, and slow_response
• One run summary row with totals

👥 Who it's for

SEO and QA teams auditing links at scale. Common jobs:

• Check URLs before or after a site migration.
• Find 404s and 5xx pages in bulk.
• Audit redirect chains and final URLs.
• QA exported links from a CMS, sitemap, or crawler.
• Monitor high-value landing pages.
• Prepare clean URL health data for SEO reports.

Example tasks

• Check URLs before a site migration
• Find broken links from a URL list
• Audit redirect chains in bulk

⚙️ How to check URLs in bulk

1. Open the Actor on Apify.
2. Paste your urls (full URLs or domains).
3. Set maxUrls (safety cap; 0 for no cap) and concurrency.
4. Keep followRedirects on to record the full chain.
5. Click Start.
6. Download CSV/JSON/Excel or pull from the Apify API.

📥 Input

{
  "urls": [
    "https://example.com",
    "http://example.com",
    "https://example.com/not-found"
  ],
  "maxUrls": 100,
  "followRedirects": true,
  "maxRedirects": 10,
  "timeoutMs": 15000,
  "concurrency": 20
}

• urls - full URLs or domains to check.
• maxUrls - safety cap for a run. Use 0 for no cap.
• followRedirects - follow redirects and record the chain.
• maxRedirects - max redirects per input URL.
• timeoutMs - per-request timeout.
• concurrency - parallel URL checks.

📤 Output

Each URL audit row includes:

{
  "recordType": "url_audit",
  "inputUrl": "http://example.com",
  "finalUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "status": "redirect",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "ok": true,
  "broken": false,
  "redirected": true,
  "redirectCount": 1,
  "hasSeoIssue": false,
  "seoIssues": [],
  "responseTimeMs": 183,
  "contentType": "text/html",
  "redirectChain": [
    {
      "url": "http://example.com/",
      "statusCode": 301,
      "location": "https://example.com/"
    }
  ]
}

The dataset also includes one run_summary row with totals for checked, OK, broken, redirected, timeout, error, invalid URLs, and SEO issue flags.

💵 How much does it cost?

This Actor uses lightweight HTTP requests only (no browser), so it is cheap and fast even for large lists. You pay per result plus Apify platform usage. Cost scales with the number of URLs; concurrency controls speed.

🔁 Run it on the Apify platform

Schedule recurring link-health monitoring, call it from the Apify API, export to CSV/JSON/Excel, or wire alerts into Make, Zapier, Slack, or webhooks when broken links appear.

⚠️ Limits and caveats

• This Actor uses HTTP requests only. It does not run a browser.
• It does not execute JavaScript on pages.
• It checks the URLs you provide; it does not crawl to discover new ones.
• One bad URL produces an error row, not a failed run.
• Redirect chains are captured manually so you can inspect every hop.
• non_html_content is an informational flag, not always a problem. PDFs, images, feeds, and downloads can be valid targets.

🧩 Related Actors

• Website Contact Extractor - once a domain is reachable, pull its public contacts.
• Lead List Deduplicator & Normalizer - clean and merge URL/contact exports before CRM import.

❓ FAQ

Does it run JavaScript? No. It uses HTTP requests only, which keeps it fast and cheap; client-side redirects are not followed.

Does one bad URL fail the run? No. A bad URL becomes an error row so the rest of the batch still completes.

Can I check whole domains? Yes - pass domains or full URLs; it checks exactly what you provide.

🛠️ Support

If a run fails or a field is missing, open an Actor issue with the run URL, the input you used, and the field or behavior you expected.