What are some common methods to check the existence of a link on the internet using PHP?

One common method to check the existence of a link on the internet using PHP is to make an HTTP request to the URL and check the response code. If the response code is in the 2xx range, it typically means the link exists. Another method is to use the `get_headers()` function to retrieve the headers of the URL and check if the 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK' header is present. 

function checkLinkExists($url) {
    $headers = get_headers($url);
    
    if (strpos($headers[0], '200') !== false) {
        return true;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}

$url = 'https://www.example.com';
if (checkLinkExists($url)) {
    echo 'The link exists.';
} else {
    echo 'The link does not exist.';
}

Keywords

PHP link existence internet file_get_contents cURL

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