Invalid Store URLs

[astral276]

Does anyone know of a way to test if a URL is valid and not being redirected?

The problem I have is with my Stores page. I like to regularly check if the stores listed still exist. The trouble is that if they do not the link does not fail but is redirected to the user's Items page. That means the ways of checking I know of do not indicate the store link actually failed. An example being: http://sogo-buy-mugs.ebid.net/

Currently I have to physically and visually check each link - which is getting to be rather a pain. If no easy answers I may have to look if I can rewrite the page using the eBid API to get store data in real time (or maybe just get rid of the page altogether).

Of course... if people told me when they shut up shop it wouldn't be a problem. Only one person has ever thought to let me know and that I could remove their link.

[astral276]

Bump!

Nobody?

[Maelbrigda]

sorry astral i must be guilty of that. i closed my handmade soaps and handmade cards shops and combined them into 1 - simply-handmade.

I admit i never thought to let the two folk that added my links know

[JanetB]

Hi Mel, I had the same problem with my list of stores on my website. I must have had around 300 or more stores and found it more and more time consuming checking each one to make sure they were still live. No one bothered to tell me of their changes and I didn't really have the time any more to maintain the list, so I decided to discontinue offering the free space on my website. Now, in defense of sellers having their links added to other websites, I think, in time, they forget where and who they are with (I'm certainly guilty of that) and forget (or don't realize) to tell the website owner of their changes.

[damian_steele]

Does anyone know of a way to test if a URL is valid and not being redirected?

The problem I have is with my Stores page. I like to regularly check if the stores listed still exist. The trouble is that if they do not the link does not fail but is redirected to the user's Items page. That means the ways of checking I know of do not indicate the store link actually failed. An example being: http://sogo-buy-mugs.ebid.net/

Currently I have to physically and visually check each link - which is getting to be rather a pain.

The only reference I can find to anything even remotely helpful requires some knowledge of PHP.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...-url-redirects

If you are suitably skilled, I think the above link might contain the basics of what you need.

[astral276]

The only reference I can find to anything even remotely helpful requires some knowledge of PHP.

Thank you, I can likely do something with that. It looks like, based on the write-up, it will return the kinds of results I am after. PHP is not a problem.