How to Check URLs Using .NET: ASP Alliance

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How to Check URLs Using .NET

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Published: 25 Oct 2003

Unedited - Community Contributed

Abstract
A look at how to stop broken links on your site with .NET. Use Screen Scraping methods to check the validity of links on your site, from checking for 404 errors to ensuring that URLs don't point at something completely different than intended.

by Damian Manifold
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So you display links to other sites on your site, sooner or later one is bound to end up a dead link, or you may have lots of bookmarks and you cannot be bothered to weed out all the old ones that no longer point where they used to.

Here is a solution to your problem, an automated link checking routine.

Source Code

Check.aspx	The URL entry form and result page
Check.aspx.vb	Code behind to check the URL

In the above code you will see that it uses 4 ways to identify problem URLs.

Check the URL for errors, e.g.: invalid address or 404 page not found.
Check the URL is not redirected either server side or client side, indicating the site has moved

These next 2 require some prior knowledge of the site

Check the title has not change, indicating the site is not what it used to be
Check the page has not changed, this only works for static pages

Examples

Check.aspx

the Check URL in action

Articles

Importing bookmark.htm with Regular Expressions

by Damian Manifold

User Comments

Title: a
Name: b
Date: 2012-05-08 6:18:13 AM
Comment:
123

Title: code
Name: mustufa
Date: 2011-01-19 10:17:09 AM
Comment:
How to Check URLs Using .NET
i want to download assembly of this code

Title: Check URL
Name: Goldie
Date: 2007-11-19 9:55:38 PM
Comment:
this item is brillant!
With a few minor changes to the code behind it works brillantly !! well done

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