The False-Positive Quarantine

The False-Positive Quarantine
Rate-limited, geo-blocked, and bot-blocked pages look dead but aren't. Quarantine before pitching.
1 — Flag any 403, 429, or 503 separately from true 404/410.
2 — Route flagged URLs to a quarantine list, not the dead pile.
3 — Re-check quarantine with a different IP and a real user-agent after 48h.
4 — Trigger: still failing on second pass with browser headers? Promote to dead.
5 — QA gate: never outreach on a URL that failed only once or only with a bot user-agent.
Automation fits at step 3 — schedule a delayed re-check using a rotating user-agent.
Definition of done: zero pitches sent on quarantined URLs; only twice-confirmed failures reach outreach.