diff --git a/apps/api/src/controllers/crawl.ts b/apps/api/src/controllers/crawl.ts
index 5c1e0428..54eb1f40 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/controllers/crawl.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/controllers/crawl.ts
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ import { v4 as uuidv4 } from "uuid";
 import { Logger } from "../../src/lib/logger";
 import { addCrawlJob, addCrawlJobs, crawlToCrawler, lockURL, lockURLs, saveCrawl, StoredCrawl } from "../../src/lib/crawl-redis";
 import { getScrapeQueue } from "../../src/services/queue-service";
+import { checkAndUpdateURL } from "../../src/lib/validateUrl";
 
 export async function crawlController(req: Request, res: Response) {
   try {
@@ -43,10 +44,17 @@ export async function crawlController(req: Request, res: Response) {
       return res.status(402).json({ error: "Insufficient credits" });
     }
 
-    const url = req.body.url;
+    let url = req.body.url;
     if (!url) {
       return res.status(400).json({ error: "Url is required" });
     }
+    try {
+      url = checkAndUpdateURL(url).url;
+    } catch (e) {
+      return res
+        .status(e instanceof Error && e.message === "Invalid URL" ? 400 : 500)
+        .json({ error: e.message ?? e });
+    }
 
     if (isUrlBlocked(url)) {
       return res
diff --git a/apps/api/src/lib/validateUrl.ts b/apps/api/src/lib/validateUrl.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..2d2111c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/api/src/lib/validateUrl.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+
+const protocolIncluded = (url: string) => {
+  // if :// not in the start of the url assume http (maybe https?)
+  // regex checks if :// appears before any .
+  return(/^([^.:]+:\/\/)/.test(url));
+}
+
+const getURLobj = (s: string) => {
+  // URL fails if we dont include the protocol ie google.com
+  let error = false;
+  let urlObj = {};
+  try {
+    urlObj = new URL(s);
+  } catch (err) {
+    error = true;
+  }
+  return { error, urlObj };
+};
+
+export const checkAndUpdateURL = (url: string) => {
+
+  if (!protocolIncluded(url)) {
+    url = `http://${url}`;
+  }
+
+  const { error, urlObj } = getURLobj(url);
+  if (error) {
+    throw new Error("Invalid URL");
+  }
+
+  const typedUrlObj = urlObj as URL;
+
+  if(typedUrlObj.protocol !== "http:" && typedUrlObj.protocol !== "https:") {
+    throw new Error("Invalid URL");
+  }
+
+  return { urlObj: typedUrlObj, url: url };
+}
\ No newline at end of file