checking to see if a link is not working

[lucilue2003]

I have a database with over 1000 banners.
When you click on the link, it redirects you to the actuall site.
Sometimes, when you click on the link you are taken to the page :

http://www.bannerCompanyName.com/error_click_english.html

and that page reads:

<font face=verdana size=2>

<b><font color=red>Sorry! </font></b> You have clicked on a link that has expired or been

deactivated. The link was used to facilitate relationships between

merchant and affiliate members of the LinkShare Network. We apologize

for any inconvenience.

how do i check to see if the link is deactivated?

file_get_contents("link") ?
and then parse and if so how do i use the regular expression ?

Thanks.

[drew010]

you should be able to integrate the following code into some sort of program to filter out old links...

$html = file_get_contents("link");

if (stristr($html, "expired or been deactivated") !== FALSE) {
  //this is a bad link
}