What can fail while the homepage still works?
A homepage can answer while a link on it goes to a missing help page. Oh Dear has a separate broken-link crawler that follows links from your site and reports many failed page responses. It also offers uptime and certificate checks, which answer different questions.
Which links could the crawler miss?
The crawler does not run JavaScript, so it may miss links that only appear after your app loads or after a visitor signs in. It follows internal links by default and has time and page limits. Check the crawl report for coverage before treating an empty result as proof that all paths work.
Only set up checks for sites you are authorized to monitor. Add a manual walkthrough for important actions the crawler cannot reach.
How do you budget for checks and keep what you need?
Oh Dear prices hosted plans by the number of monitored sites and servers, with checks bundled. The published Solo tier lists two sites or servers for €15 per month before VAT and a 10-day trial. Keep the target list and important reports where your team can find them.
A developer can use the API to read monitors and their checks. Keep a separate record of who receives alerts and what the customer status page shows.
What should you check when one help link is broken?
On paper, draw a fictional homepage with a visible help link and a second link that appears only after sign-in. Run no crawl and visit no endpoints.
- Trace the visible routeMake the help destination a missing page. Mark what you expect an external crawler to report.
- Trace the private routeMark the signed-in link as requiring a separate authorized manual check. Leave coverage unknown until checked.