Broken Link Monitor
Do not remember to rerun a checker. The useful version of link checking is the one that runs on a schedule, tells you when something starts failing, and records when it works again.
Availability
This is not available yet
Broken link monitoring is being built into TagPipes and is not something you can turn on today. This page describes what it is for and how it is meant to work, so you can tell us whether it is the shape you need before it ships.
Nothing on this page is a scan you can run. If you want to be told when it is ready, the form further down is the whole mechanism: one email, when it opens.
A check is a snapshot. Links break on their own schedule.
Running a link checker is satisfying. You get a list, you work through it, the list goes to zero, and for about a week the site is clean. Then somebody unpublishes a page, a partner restructures their site, a product is discontinued, and the list starts filling up again with nobody watching.
The problem is not that checkers are bad. It is that the work they produce is recurring and the tool is not. Everything about a one-time check assumes somebody will remember to run it again, and the honest record of how often that happens is: twice, enthusiastically, and then not for a year.
Monitoring is the same check with the remembering taken out. The value is not a better scan. It is that the second, fifth and fiftieth scan happen at all, and that you only hear about the difference between them.
How monitoring is meant to work
This is the design. It is what we are building towards, not a description of something you can use today.
1. Scan on a schedule
The same check, run again on a cadence you set, without anyone starting it. The first run establishes what is currently failing, so you are not told that a link you already know about is broken.
2. Tell you what is new
The alert that matters is the difference, not the list. A link that was already broken yesterday is not news; a link that worked yesterday and does not today is. Reporting the whole list every time is how monitoring becomes something people mute.
3. Keep state for each link
New, still failing, and resolved are three different things, and they need different attention. A link that recovered on its own is worth knowing about, because it usually means the failure was transient and the report that flagged it was wrong.
4. Notify once, to somewhere you look
One notification when something changes, not a daily digest of the same rows. The test of a monitor is whether people still have the alerts turned on after two months.
What we intend it to report
Written as intent, because that is what it is. This page will be rewritten as plain description when it ships.
The page the link is on
A broken destination is not actionable on its own. The page carrying the link is where the fix happens, and one dead destination usually appears on several pages.
The destination that failed
The address that did not answer, so the same broken destination can be grouped across every page that links to it rather than reported over and over.
How it failed
A 404 and a timeout need different responses. The status code, or the fact that nothing answered at all, is part of the finding rather than a detail underneath it.
When it started
The first check that saw it fail. It is the fastest way to work out which change caused it, and it is information only a schedule can give you.
When it recovered
Resolved is a state worth recording. Half of what a monitor teaches you is which failures fix themselves, and those are the ones not worth waking anyone for.
A notification on change
On something new, not on every run. A monitor that emails an identical list every morning gets filtered within a fortnight.
What is deliberately not on this page
No pricing, because it is not priced. No screenshots, because what exists is not finished and a picture of an unfinished screen is a promise we have not earned. No customer numbers, no benchmark claims and no case studies, because there are none for something that has not shipped.
TagPipes today does tagging automation, measurement, server-side event delivery, consent management and privacy tooling. That is a real product with real customers, and the free trial gives you all of it. It does not give you broken link monitoring, and nothing on this page should be read as saying otherwise.
Frequently asked questions
Tell me when broken link monitoring is ready
One email when it is available to use. No newsletter, no drip sequence, and we will not pass your address on.
More on broken links
What a link check finds, how each failure behaves, and how to work through a site-wide result.
- Broken Link CheckerWhat a link check does, what it reports, and what to fix first.
- Website Broken Link CheckerChecking a whole site: where broken links come from and how often to look.
- Dead Link CheckerLink rot: expired domains, dead hosts and pages that quietly stopped existing.
- 404 Link Checker404, 410 and soft 404, and why a 404 list is not the whole picture.
- Website Change MonitorAlso monitor important pages for content changes.
What TagPipes does today
Link monitoring is not part of the product yet. Tagging automation, measurement, server-side events, consent management and privacy tooling are, and the trial gives you all of them.
See the TagPipes platformFree 14-day trial. No credit card. This page will change when link monitoring ships.