Automated link verification validates every cited source in an outreach draft by probing external URLs through a specialized safe_get engine that executes streaming byte-range requests (bytes=0-0) with built-in SSRF protection to identify broken or unresponsive pages. When a cited third-party URL returns a 4xx, 5xx, or network failure, the system prunes the dead link by unwrapping their anchor text into plain prose, preserving natural sentence flow without dropping context.

Crucially, the system safeguards the primary target link from removal: if the target placement fails to resolve, alters its anchor text, or is omitted entirely by the model, the entire draft is failed and categorized under folded statuses like no-link. Simultaneously, the engine scans the text against co-link policy rules using word-boundary regex patterns to detect both explicit hyperlinks and contextual textual mentions of banned competitor domains, folding any draft containing a prohibited reference before it ever reaches human review or publisher outreach.