Link health
Find out when a link's destination stops working, and what to do about it.
Pages move, sites get rebuilt and domains expire. We visit the destination of each of your links regularly, so you find out a link has stopped working before the people you sent there do.
How links are checked
- Which links: every live link. Paused, scheduled, expired, archived and disabled links aren't checked, because nobody reaches their destination.
- How often: a few minutes after a link is made or its destination changes, then daily for popular links (10 or more clicks from people in 30 days), weekly for links with fewer clicks, and monthly for links nobody has clicked lately. The service's administrator can change these.
- What a check does: it asks for the page the way a browser does, without downloading it, and follows up to 10 redirects. It waits up to 10 seconds for an answer.
- No false alarms from a blip: if a check fails, the link is checked again an hour later. It only shows as not working once two checks in a row fail.
- Gentle on websites: links to the same site are checked one at a time, with a pause in between.
What each status means
| Status | What we found | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Destination works | The page answered normally. | Nothing. |
| Checking again | The latest check failed, but the one before worked. | Wait an hour: it's checked again before it counts. |
| Check destination | The page works, but goes through more than 3 redirects first, or the site refused our automated check (it answered 401, 403 or 429). | Point the link at the final address, or open the link yourself. If it works, choose Ignore. |
| Broken | The site answered with an error, such as 404 (page not found), 410 (removed) or 500 (server error), or redirects in a loop. | Change the link's destination to the page's new address. |
| Unreachable | No answer within 10 seconds, the connection was refused, or the site's HTTPS certificate isn't valid. | Check the site is up. If it's yours, ask whoever hosts it. |
| Domain gone | The domain name doesn't exist. It may have expired. | Renew the domain, or change the destination. |
| Private address | The destination, or a page it redirects to, is on a private network address (such as 10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x). We don't visit those, and people outside that network can't open them either. | Use the page's public address. |
| Unsafe | The destination redirects to a page listed as malware or phishing by automatic screening. The link is disabled, as it would be if the destination itself were listed. | See If your link was disabled. |
Where you see it
- Links → Link health lists the links that need a look, most clicked first, so you can fix the busiest ones first. Choose Show to see links that work, links not checked yet, or links you've ignored.
- In the Links list, a link that isn't working has a badge next to its status.
- Each link's page has a Destination health section with what we found, when, where the destination ends up after redirects, and the recent checks.
- With the API, use Link health.
Check a link now
After you've fixed a page or changed a destination, choose Check now on the link's page or in Link health to see the result straight away. You need a role that can edit links. Each link can be checked by hand once a minute, and a workspace up to 30 times an hour. Changing a link's destination also starts a fresh check within a few minutes.
Ignore a link
Some sites don't let automated checks in but work fine for people, and some links are meant to go somewhere only your team can reach. Choose Ignore and the link isn't checked or reported any more. Choose Check again (in Link health, under Ignored) to start again.
Weekly email
When links stop working, people in the workspace who can edit links get an email listing them, most clicked first. It comes at most once a week and only when something new has stopped working, and each broken link is only in one email.
- To stop it, open Settings and choose Stop these emails under Workspace, or use the button at the bottom of Link health. It's per workspace.
- If your email provider reported a spam complaint from your address, these emails stop automatically.
Plans
Every plan gets the checks, the badges, Link health and Check now. The weekly email comes with the Business plan and above, alongside the other summary emails.
For website owners
Our checks identify themselves with the user agent BlackgumLinks-LinkCheck/1.0 and a link to this page. They send a HEAD request, or a GET request whose response body isn't read, for pages that short links point to. They don't follow links on the page, run scripts or submit forms, and a busy link is checked about once a day. If our checks cause you a problem, contact us.
Something missing or unclear? Tell us and we'll improve this page.