Verify a link before you cite or use it: HTTP status, the full redirect chain, the final URL, latency, and the final Content-Type/Content-Length. Redirects are followed manually (max 10) with SSRF validation on every hop; probes with HEAD by default and falls back to GET automatically when a server rejects HEAD. A dead or broken target (404, 410, 500…) is a valid result, not an error. Response bodies are never downloaded.