Most efficient way for testing links

I'm currently developping an app that is going through all the files on a server and checking every single hrefs to check w开发者_如何学Cether they are valid or not. Using a WebClient or a HttpWebRequest/HttpWebResponse is kinda overkilling the process because it downloads the whole page each time, which is useless, I only need to check if the link do not return 404.

What would be the most efficient way? Socket seems to be a good way of doing it, however I'm not quite sure how this works.

Thanks for sharing your expertise!

The most efficient would be to send the HEAD verb to preserve bandwidth.

var request = WebRequest.Create("http://google.com/");
request.Method = "HEAD";
using (var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
{
    if (response.StatusCode == HttpStatusCode.OK)
    {
        // 200 OK
    }
}

Set HttpWebRequest.Method to "Head". This will only receive the headers.