Free tools
Six checks that answer straight away, with no account and nothing to install. They are the same checks Expansel runs continuously, available here one at a time.
Check a domain name
Expiry date, registrar and status of a domain name.
When does this domain expire?Check an SSL certificate
Certificate expiry date, issuer, and the names it actually covers.
How many days until it breaks?Check redirects
The whole redirect chain, hop by hop, with the type of each one.
Where does this address really lead?Check a backlink
Whether the link is there, with which anchor, dofollow or nofollow.
Does this site link to mine?Check the links on a page
Every link on a page requested one by one: the broken ones on one side, the rest on the other.
Does this page send readers to dead ends?Test the robots.txt
Whether the site robots.txt allows this address to be crawled.
Is my page blocked?Which one to use, depending on what you are after
These tools answer different questions, and half the time lost comes from opening the wrong one. Here is the mapping.
| The symptom | The tool |
|---|---|
| The browser shows a security warning | Check an SSL certificate |
| A page takes a long time to appear for no reason | Check redirects |
| A partner says they placed a link to you | Check a backlink |
| A page sends visitors into 404 errors | Check links on a page |
| A page never shows up in search results | Test the robots.txt |
| You want to know when a domain expires | Check a domain name |
When a one-off check stops being enough
These six tools answer a question asked at one moment. That is exactly what you need when you are chasing the cause of a problem you have already noticed.
The trouble lies elsewhere: most incidents are never noticed. A certificate expires on a Sunday, a partner drops a link during a redesign, a deployment leaves one line too many in the robots.txt. Nobody tells you, and the question only crosses your mind weeks later, while wondering why traffic fell.
The practical rule is simple: if you ask yourself the question once, a tool is enough. If you ought to ask it every week and you will not, something has to ask it for you.
What none of these tools does
- They do not monitor anything over time. Every check is a one-off, and nothing is kept between visits.
- They do not crawl a whole site. They work on one address at a time, and the page-links tool stops at the first twenty-five links.
- They do not replace Search Console. They read what any visitor can read, with no privileged access to your search data.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an account?
No, none at all. These pages work with no sign-up, no email address and no card. They exist because they are useful, and the product only shows up once we have answered you, never before.
Is there a usage limit?
Yes, a reasonable number of checks per hour, lower for the tool that tests the links on a page since that one makes up to twenty-five requests on its own. Without that cap, a free page open to everyone would become a convenient way to fire thousands of requests at any site from our server.
What happens to the addresses I type?
We keep the domain name you type, to feed our domain registry, along with the result of the check, which lets us answer straight away if the same request comes back. The content of the pages we fetch is never kept, and your IP address is only kept as a fingerprint, to spot abuse.
These checks, continuously, on all your sites
Expansel runs these checks on a schedule and writes to you when something changes. Free for one site and ten links, no card required.