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VC008 – Broken Asset Check

Overview

Detects broken or invalid asset URLs (images, CSS, scripts, favicons) and missing src attributes.

Probability that AI systems use this signal: Crawlers and generative AI pipelines consume structured and visible page signals for training and inference. Assessment-specific signals (e.g. schema, canonicals, trust cues) affect how likely a page is indexed and surfaced. The probability that this assessment's signal influences AI behavior is high when the page is in a product or compliance context.

Impact on geo compliance: Passing this assessment supports geo compliance by ensuring machine-readable and visible content meet standards that reduce the risk of wrong locale, pricing, or trust in AI-generated answers. Failing can lead to non-compliant or misleading surfacing.

What We Check

  • **Asset URLs:** img[src], link[rel=stylesheet][href], script[src], link[rel=icon/shortcut icon/apple-touch-icon][href]. All resolved to absolute via urljoin(context.url).
  • **Broken URL:** no scheme or (no netloc and scheme != "data"); or URL contains undefined, null, #, javascript:, vbscript:, about:blank (case-insensitive). data: URLs not considered broken.
  • **Missing src:** img without src; script without src and without inline content (script.string).
  • **Score:** 100 − 50 per broken asset (and per "missing_src" count). No assets and no missing src: pass.

Pass / Fail and Score

  • **PASSED** if score >= 60. Details: total assets, broken count, missing src count.

How to Fix When It Fails

  • Fix broken image/CSS/script/favicon URLs; add src to img and script where required.

Common Issues

  • Empty or placeholder src; javascript: or data URLs used incorrectly; missing src on img/script.

Dependencies

None. Uses context.url for resolving relative URLs.

How to Verify

  • Inspect all img, link, script src/href; ensure valid absolute URLs and no missing src.

Additional Resources

  • Valid URLs; avoid javascript: in src/href