You could also use LWP::UserAgent and HTTP::Request as follows:

   use strict; 
   use LWP::UserAgent;
   use HTTP::Request;

   my $req         = HTTP::Request->new(HEAD=>$url);
   my $ua          = LWP::UserAgent->new;
   my $resp        = $ua->request($req);
   my $status_line = $resp->status_line;

   my %errors = ('500'=>'Bad hostname supplied',
                 '404'=>'URL not found',
                 '403'=>'URL forbidden',
                 '401'=>'Authorization failed', 
                 '400'=>'Bad request found',
                 '302'=>'Redirected URL'
                );

   if ($status_line =~ /200/) {
      # do stuff
   } else {
      ($status_line) = ($status_line =~ /(\d+)/);

      if (defined($errors{$status_line})) {
          validate_error($errors{$status_line});
      } else {
          validate_error('Unknown error.');
      }
      $success = 0;
   }

   sub validate_error {
           my ($errors) = @_;
           $url = "$errors";
   }
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