Actually, thinking it through, perhaps I'd go with something more like this... If you wanted to, you could read the contents of the URL, though I imagine you just want an UP or DOWN decision, I think the below would do the trick.
$cn = fsockopen ('http://www.daniweb.com', 443, $errnum, $errdesc, 30);
if (!$cn) {
// Can't Connect to URL
$sitestatus="DOWN";
}else{
// Connected fine - URL works
$sitestatus="UP";
}
Unsolved 
