Looking for web service that checks URLs and emails if URL breaks

[tinjaw]

Here's my use case. URLs are used in course materials as external reference sources. Those links often stop working and we want to be notified so we can update the course materials that use those broken URLs. I want to be able to maintain a list of the URLs, annotated or tagged or grouped by course name, and have the service email when the URLs no longer point to what they used to.

Anybody know of such a service that focuses on this?

I am going to look into using something like delicious for this, but that will be overkill and might be too complicated for the intended end user.

[sri]

Perhaps you can place all the URLs in a html file, put it in a server and provide its URL in the text box here?

[Veign]

Should be very easy to create one, at least that is only accessible to you on your domain.

Use a script like:
function http_test_existance($url) {
return (($fp = @fopen($url, 'r')) === false) ? false : @fclose($fp);
}

or better yet use:
http://us3.php.net/fsockopen

Then create a webpage, attached to a Cron job, that checks an array of URLs and sends emails out when they are dead.

Could probably be created in less than an hour.

[Veign]

If you can wait a day or so and have a domain running PHP with access to setup a Cron job I will create a CheckURL class in PHP that will accept a single URL or an array of URLs and perform a check and email or return the results.

[tinjaw]

I can definitely wait. That would be a cool service. Could you turn it into one of your websites? Then it might justify your time spent.

[Veign]

I'm not worried.  The reason I wouldn't make it one of my sites right now is time to create a user management system and any issues that may arise from sending lots of emails from my server.

I will create a class and sample usage page and put it in my web development section on Veign.  All you will have to do is download it, place it on your server, update the URL list, and setup a cron job to point to the sample file.  Run the job once a day and you should have what you need.

[Veign]

Here it is;

Check if a url or group of URLs are valid:
http://www.veign.com/code-view.php?type=web&codeid=65

Includes a sample page showing it working with a single URL and with an array of URLs.  There is also a Cron job page.  All you need to do is update the URLs and supply an email address for the email_report function call.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Veign]

Did you get a chance to check out the code?  Did it work for you and do what you had needed?

[tinjaw]

I downloaded, but didn't test yet. I plan on doing that tonight. Also, mousers post about using URL snooper on docs and folders caught my eye. But my idea is to put it on a server, use URL snooper to go through all the .doc, .ppt, etc files and grab the URLs and then export as a page that will then be fed to your script. I may end up building something and hanging it on one of my own websites just to make it easier for them.

[Veign]

Hi tinjaw,
You have done a good question, it’s really interesting. If you get any good reply, so please let me know. So I’ll also get some good idea.
Thanks for your future help.

Sounds kinda of spammy to me (especially with the Video Editing link in the signature).

[jgpaiva]

Thanks for the heads up, Veign.. Removed.

PS: it's the second time this guy makes spam like this.