Automating URL Detection and Validation with APIs

Automate URL detection and validation with ApyHub’s API. Clean user content, catch broken links, and streamline web data processing workflows.

Muskan Sidana

Last updated on July 22, 2025

Managing and handling URLs should be sort of simple. However, we have seen that many developers observe in their daily life that it’s actually anything but simple. Malformed links, unreachable URLs, or links pointing to untrusted domains are just some of the usual suspects when it comes to common issues that they face when building something cool: This can be a simple web application, a content (training?) platform, an internal CMS etc.

The reality is that many developers still (heavily) rely on regex-based scripts, manual quality assurance, or some kind of brittle logic to validate links. Needless to say that I believe that such methods are inefficient, prone to errors , and most importantly, hard to maintain at scale.

In this blog we are going to discuss the URLs Detector API , an API that is now available via ApyHub. Built by SharpAPI, a trusted provider of AI-powered developer tools for commerce, productivity, and automation use cases, this API helps developers and no coders automatically detect, extract, validate, and classify URLs from any piece of text: This could be any kind of user input, scraped content, or internal documentation.

The API is designed for fast integration into modern developer stacks. It doesn't matter if it is used and implemented in frontend validation, backend content moderation, or automated data cleansing pipelines.

Real-World Use Cases: Where the URLs Detector API works best

Cleaning Up User-Generated Content on Forums and Platforms

For developers and teams working on projects or applications that allow other users to post their own content, articles, comments, or support tickets (think knowledge bases, online communities, or customer service tools), then allowing them to also include links is probably a good idea. The problem here is that not all those links that are being shared are helpful, or safe.

Some links are broken. Others are filled with awful typosss or point to banned domains. This is where the URLs Detector API can be useful. Developers can call the API and extract all links from any submitted content, validate the URL reachability, and ultimately block or flag all problematic URLs.

Scraping and Cleaning Imported Web Data

Developers that are scraping websites or importing data from legacy content systems, often deal with a huge mess of HTML, many broken links, partial URLs, and mixed formatting. In these cases, regex is rarely enough.

Instead of dealing with this mess, developers can use the ApyHub’s HTML to Word API to extract clean text, then pass it to the URLs Detector API. The API will identify valid links, detect broken or malformed ones, and return structured metadata for each link.

Ensuring Link Integrity in Internal CMS and Knowledge Tools

Developers and teams that manage documentation, marketing content, or an internal knowledge base, know the real pain of broken links hurting SEO, user experience, or editorial trust.

Instead of relying on manual checks or post-publish audits, they can integrate the URLs Detector API directly into the company CMS pipeline. They can trigger it via webhooks, API calls, or Voiden, and ensure every link is reachable before your team hits publish.

This is especially useful in fast-moving teams where contributors use Notion, Confluence, custom CMS tools, or markdown editors that generate docs dynamically.

Applying URL Policies in Regulated Environments

Industries like healthcare, education, and finance often need to enforce strict URL policies blocking certain domains, validating outbound links in customer-facing content, or maintaining allowlists for compliance.

In this case, the URLs Detector API can help make this process easier. How? First of all, it extracts every URL from any text input and returns a clear status for each URL. From there, a custom logic can ensure that inappropriate content is blocked or flagged depending on the domain.

This can be a super powerful tool for compliance teams, risk management workflows, and regulated data pipelines.

What the API Delivers

The API can be used by developers and teams who want actual results and time efficiency. Here are the main features of the API:

Complete URL extraction from any unstructured or structured text input
Validation of link format, including malformed, valid, and unreachable URLs
Real-time reachability checks to catch broken or dead links
Normalized URLs for consistent processing and matching
Lightweight JSON output that integrates cleanly with modern languages and frameworks

Works Seamlessly With Other APIs in ApyHub

This API is part of the SharpAPI collection within the ApyHub ecosystem, so it works smoothly alongside other useful APIs designed to help automate content processing and improve validation:

HTML to Word converts raw, messy HTML into clean text for easier analysis.
Metadata Extractor pulls useful information like titles and descriptions from URLs to enrich your data.
The Explicit Content Detector scans user-generated content to flag inappropriate or offensive language.
The Email Validator checks if email addresses, whether inbound or outbound are correctly formatted and deliverable.

Developers often use these APIs together in web applications, automated content workflows, compliance monitoring, and even when preparing datasets for AI training.

Try the URLs Detector API Now

The URLs Detector API is designed to be usable in just a few minutes. Like other ApyHub APIs, there is no setup complexity, no custom parsing logic, and no more regex hacks. The API is free to try and build for developers working on content-driven applications, compliance tools, data validation systems, and more.

Whether you are a dev processing scraped text, validating form input, or enforcing content safety, this API will help you automate link validation and improve your workflows.

Need help connecting with the API? Reach out to us or join our developer discord community.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What kinds of URLs does the API detect?

The API identifies all types of URLs, including fully qualified (https://example.com), partially formed (www.example.com), and malformed or broken links. It’s designed to work with unstructured or free-form text, not just clean HTML.

2. Does the API check if a URL is working?

Yes. The API performs a reachability check and flags whether each URL is valid, broken (unreachable), or malformed. This helps you quickly identify dead links or incorrect formatting.

3. Can I use this API with HTML input?

Absolutely. If you’re working with HTML content (e.g., from crawlers or CMS exports), you can first clean it using ApyHub’s HTML to Word API to remove markup and simplify the structure for better link detection.

4. What’s the size limit for input text?

The API accepts a maximum payload size per request, as outlined in the API reference. For large datasets, it's best to batch the input or process text in segments.

5. Is this suitable for real-time use?

Yes. The API is optimized for fast response times and can be integrated into real-time workflows, such as content submission forms, CMS publishing flows, or chat systems.

6. Can I enforce custom rules like domain allowlists or blocklists?

The API gives you structured results with clean domain and URL data. You can then easily apply your own filtering logic (e.g., allow only internal domains, block social media links, etc.) in your application code.

7. How do I test or integrate this API locally?

You can use Voiden, ApyHub’s free, open-source API client. It supports local development, Git-based projects, and plugin extensions. Voiden makes it easy to discover, test, and chain ApyHub APIs in a way that fits naturally into your development workflow.