Wonderful suggestions ! Though a old thread someone might be still needing help with such a thing as I do. I tired using Net::DNS module to lookup the domain name and it fails in most of the cases. Probably need much more configuration on the Name Server side. The LWP Head module seems to do the same task pretty simple and quick. As I only wanted to check if the domain name exists. What other things should i consider ? and is there really any difference testing a page http://www.whizblaze.com and http://whizblaze.com / Socket does not seem to be perfect all the times as there are still people who has configured http request to a different port.