Link Checks

[Ken Puls]

Actually, I was wrong...

When you try to hit an invalid forum URL here, it does NOT 404 or redirect. The CMS actually returns content inside the URL of the invalid page. As an example, this page is invalid: http://www.excelguru.ca/forums/showt...29-Link-Checks

Notice though that the header does show the URL I specified. This means that the URL IS valid according to the server. The only method I can think of is to parse all the text in the content of the returned page looking for an element that is common only to the "does not exist" page.

Does that make sense?

[GaryA]

Hi Ken,

Wheny ou say "parse all thetext in the cntent of th returned page" are we talking about the URL portion or actual content?. You Would think that there would be a response code identifying the issue that we could key in on (i.e 404, 301, 200), instead? Would a reference to msinet.ocx, an ActiveX Control belonging to Microsoft Internet Transfer Control help with this?

[Ken Puls]

Hi Gary,

I'm talking actual content.

The challenge is that these Content Managment Systems are now getting smart enough that the don't seem to return a 404 or 301 error. They just serve up their own message about the page being invalid.

I've never used msinet.ocx, so I can't say if that would help or not. I can try and take a look, but I've got some other stuff I have to do tonight...

[GaryA]

When you try to hit an invalid forum URL here, it does NOT 404 or redirect. The CMS actually returns content inside the URL of the invalid page. As an example, this page is invalid: http://www.excelguru.ca/forums/showt...29-Link-Checks

Notice though that the header does show the URL I specified. This means that the URL IS valid according to the server. The only method I can think of is to parse all the text in the content of the returned page looking for an element that is common only to the "does not exist" page.

I noticed that your page offers up the following text "No Thread specified. If you followed a valid link, please notify the administrator". Is this something that is unique to your site only?

[Ken Puls]

It's something that is served up by the vBulletin Content Management System that I use to host my site. So if your site served up some common phrase instead of a 404 error, that could potentially be picked up on. You'd want to make sure that it is a textual phrase (or something) that isn't going to be served up by anything else though.