Retrieving Redirect URL from Source URL in PHP

Obtaining the redirect URL from a source URL is a common task encountered in web scraping and automation. In this context, it involves extracting the ultimate destination URL after any redirects.

Problem Statement:

Given a source URL that redirects to another location, how can we retrieve the redirected URL using PHP? For instance, consider the following scenario:

Source URL:

http://libero-news.it.feedsportal.com/c/34068/f/618095/s/2e34796f/l/0L0Sliberoquotidiano0Bit0Cnews0C12735670CI0Esaggi0Eper0Ele0Eriforme0Ecostituzionali0EChiaccherano0Ee0Eascoltano0Bhtml/story01.htm

Redirected URL:

http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/1273567/I-saggi-per-le-riforme-costituzionali-Chiaccherano-e-ascoltano.html

Solution:

To obtain the redirected URL, we can utilize PHP's cURL extension along with its capabilities for following redirects and retrieving HTTP headers:

$url = "http://libero-news.it.feedsportal.com/c/34068/f/618095/s/2e34796f/l/0L0Sliberoquotidiano0Bit0Cnews0C12735670CI0Esaggi0Eper0Ele0Eriforme0Ecostituzionali0EChiaccherano0Ee0Eascoltano0Bhtml/story01.htm";

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, true); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true); 
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true); 

$a = curl_exec($ch);

$finalUrl = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL); 

echo $finalUrl; // Output: http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/1273567/I-saggi-per-le-riforme-costituzionali-Chiaccherano-e-ascoltano.html

In this code, we:

• Initialize a cURL handle and set the source URL as the request destination.
• Enable the inclusion of the HTTP header in the output by setting CURLOPT_HEADER to true.
• Allow following redirects by setting CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION to true.
• Return the response as a string through CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER.
• Extract the final redirected URL using curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_EFFECTIVE_URL).

By following these steps, we can successfully retrieve the redirect URL from the given source URL.