diff --git a/app/Http/Controllers/WebCrawlController.php b/app/Http/Controllers/WebCrawlController.php
index 379b2d7..e22c4ca 100644
--- a/app/Http/Controllers/WebCrawlController.php
+++ b/app/Http/Controllers/WebCrawlController.php
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ public function index()
     public function crawlWebsite(Request $request)
     {
         $url = $request->query('url');
-        $depth = $request->query('depth', 1);
+        $depth = $request->query('depth', 0);
         $refresh = $request->query('refresh', false);
 
         // Check if the URL is already in the database
@@ -122,7 +122,13 @@ protected function getLinksFromPage($crawlerContent)
 
     protected function scan($url)
     {
-        $result = $this->webClient->request('GET', $url);
+        try {
+            $result = $this->webClient->request('GET', $url);
+        } catch (\Exception $e) {
+            return response()->json([
+                'error' => 'Failed to retrieve the URL',
+            ], 500);
+        }
         return $result;
     }