from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError

def is_valid_url(url):
    req = Request(url, headers={'User-Agent' : "Magic Browser"})
    try:
        response = urlopen(req)
    except URLError, e:
        return False
    else:
        return True

errors = []
word = 'linkedin.com'
if is_valid_url(word):
    print 'valid url'

else:
    errors.append("- Something's fishy with that URL")