next if ...

Whenever your match is true,   next   jumps all the rest of your statements and returns to the next iteration of the loop.

Think about whether you need the   next   statement at all. If you do, you'd probably go well with:

if ( $string =~ /(<b>\w|\.+\.zip<\/b>)/ )
{
    &do_something_with($1); # first
    next;                   # next
}
[download]

Concerning what to match, best you tell us in English what exactly you do mean to match?
Is the pipe character an alternation? Or a literal pipe character? (write "\|" then, see perlre)

Cheers, Sören

Update: corrected the typo ikegami pointed out.