Hi John,

Use LWP Perl module and the HEAD method for 404 link 
validation:
A HEAD request that, as long as it is honored by the 
server, should avoid downloading entire pages when it 
checks links.
I you wish I can send you a small urlinfo.pl script I 
wrote years ago which I used for getting information back 
about type/size and last modified date given an URL.
But you can of course also use it to validate a link.