Bulk URL Status Checker

Check thousands of URLs for HTTP status codes, broken links, redirect chains, response timing, content headers, page titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, and robots meta tags.

Use this Actor for SEO audits, website migrations, QA checks, content operations, campaign link validation, and scheduled link-health monitoring.

At a glance

• Primary job: Turn a URL list, pasted text block, hosted list, or sitemap into a structured URL health report.
• Input: URLs, urlsText, listUrl, or sitemapUrl with configurable method, redirects, timeout, and concurrency.
• Output: One dataset row per attempted URL, including both successful responses and failures.
• Best for: SEO teams, agencies, site migration teams, QA teams, marketers, and developers building monitoring workflows.

Who is it for?

• SEO teams and agencies validating migrations, redirects, canonical tags, and broken links.
• QA teams checking landing pages before launches.
• Content operations teams finding removed, redirected, or slow pages.
• Developers feeding URL health data into dashboards, alerts, and CI workflows.

Input recipes

Start from a verified public Example task when you want a ready-made configuration:

• Check website status codes and SEO metadata
• Find broken links and redirect chains
• Check a pasted list of URLs in bulk
• Check URLs from an XML sitemap

Example input

{
  "urls": ["https://example.com/", "https://www.iana.org/domains/example"],
  "maxUrls": 20,
  "concurrency": 10,
  "method": "head-get-fallback",
  "followRedirects": true,
  "includeSeoMeta": true
}

What data can you export?

Example output

{
  "inputUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "normalizedUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "finalUrl": "https://example.com/",
  "statusCode": 200,
  "statusText": "OK",
  "ok": true,
  "isBroken": false,
  "isRedirect": false,
  "redirectChain": [],
  "redirectCount": 0,
  "responseTimeMs": 184,
  "contentType": "text/html",
  "contentLength": 1256,
  "title": "Example Domain",
  "metaDescription": null,
  "canonicalUrl": null,
  "robotsMeta": null,
  "errorType": null,
  "errorMessage": null,
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-10T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Tips for best results

• Start small: Run 10-20 URLs first to verify target behavior and output columns.
• Use head-get-fallback by default: It is fast and falls back when servers reject HEAD or HTML meta is requested.
• Use GET-only when needed: Some servers return inaccurate HEAD responses.
• Lower concurrency for one domain: If many URLs hit the same small site, lower concurrency to avoid rate limits.
• Keep raw headers off unless needed: includeResponseHeaders increases dataset size.

Limits and caveats

• Some websites block automated checks or return different results by User-Agent, method, region, or proxy.
• 403, 429, timeout, DNS, TLS, and invalid URL cases are recorded as rows, not treated as actor failures.
• Large runs stop admitting new URLs before the platform deadline, save completed rows progressively, and resume the remaining URLs if the run is restarted.
• The Actor reports the observed HTTP result; it does not bypass access controls.

API usage

Node.js:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('fetch_cat/bulk-url-status-checker').call({
  urls: ['https://example.com/', 'https://httpstat.us/404'],
  followRedirects: true,
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('fetch_cat/bulk-url-status-checker').call(run_input={
    'urls': ['https://example.com/', 'https://httpstat.us/404'],
    'followRedirects': True,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

cURL:

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~bulk-url-status-checker/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"urls":["https://example.com/","https://httpstat.us/404"],"followRedirects":true}'

MCP and AI agents

Use the Actor from MCP-compatible clients through the Apify MCP Server:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fetch_cat/bulk-url-status-checker"

Claude Desktop JSON configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fetch_cat/bulk-url-status-checker"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Check these landing page URLs and summarize broken links."
• "Run a sitemap status audit and group results by status code."
• "Find redirect chains in this migration URL map."

Legality and responsible use

Only check URLs you are allowed to audit. Respect target websites, rate limits, robots policies, contracts, and applicable laws. Do not use the Actor to overload third-party servers.

Support

Open an issue from the Actor page if a run fails or output looks wrong. Include the run ID or run URL, input JSON, expected output, actual output, and one reproducible public URL.