diff --git a/src/GH.hs b/src/GH.hs
index 7df2ae77..425c7597 100644
--- a/src/GH.hs
+++ b/src/GH.hs
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ module GH
     authFromToken,
     checkExistingUpdatePR,
     closedAutoUpdateRefs,
+    urlReachable,
     compareUrl,
     latestVersion,
     pr,
@@ -19,6 +20,7 @@ module GH
 where
 
 import Control.Applicative (liftA2, some)
+import Control.Exception (try)
 import Data.Aeson (FromJSON)
 import Data.Bitraversable (bitraverse)
 import qualified Data.Text as T
@@ -28,7 +30,8 @@ import qualified Data.Vector as V
 import qualified Git
 import qualified GitHub as GH
 import GitHub.Data.Name (Name (..))
-import Network.HTTP.Client (HttpException (..), HttpExceptionContent (..), responseStatus)
+import Network.HTTP.Client
+import Network.HTTP.Client.TLS (tlsManagerSettings)
 import Network.HTTP.Types.Status (statusCode)
 import OurPrelude
 import Text.Regex.Applicative.Text ((=~))
@@ -149,6 +152,20 @@ parseURLMaybe url =
               )
    in url =~ regex
 
+urlReachable :: Text -> IO Bool
+urlReachable url =
+  case parseRequest $ T.unpack url of
+    Nothing -> pure False
+    Just req -> do
+      manager <- newManager tlsManagerSettings
+      res <-
+        try $
+          (httpNoBody (req {method = "HEAD"}) manager) ::
+          IO (Either HttpException (Response ()))
+      case res of
+        Left _ -> pure False
+        Right resp -> pure $ statusCode (responseStatus resp) == 200
+
 parseURL :: MonadIO m => Text -> ExceptT Text m URLParts
 parseURL url =
   tryJust ("GitHub: " <> url <> " is not a GitHub URL.") (parseURLMaybe url)
diff --git a/src/Update.hs b/src/Update.hs
index 64eb3337..89a8646a 100644
--- a/src/Update.hs
+++ b/src/Update.hs
@@ -253,6 +253,12 @@ updateAttrPath log mergeBase updateEnv@UpdateEnv {..} attrPath = do
       "The derivation has no 'version' attribute, so do not know how to figure out the version while doing an updateScript update"
       (not hasUpdateScript || isJust oldVerMay)
 
+    unless hasUpdateScript $
+      when (T.isInfixOf oldVersion oldSrcUrl) do
+        let url = oldVersion `T.replace` newVersion $ oldSrcUrl
+        reachable <- liftIO $ GH.urlReachable url
+        unless reachable $ throwE ("The new url doesn't exist: " <> url)
+
     -- One final filter
     Skiplist.content derivationContents