Checking for changed pages and validating links

[thing3b]

I have a large number of links that I want to make sure do not include any broken links. The problem is that some site do not use the proper 404 error code and sometimes use 301, 302 or just replace a page with unrelated content.

Can anyone point me to a solution to this problem?

The only way that I can see this being solved is to make a cache of the page and have a php script to check how similar the content is.

Does anyone know any pre-made php scripts that can do this?

Cheers,
Link-Rot

[DanA]

You may only store response code, date and length for your linked pages and react when there is a change.
A head request would be sufficient.