Socket Web Scrape

bool complete_send(SOCKET sd, const char* data){
    int curr_send = 0;
    int total = 0;
    int bytes_left = strlen(data);
    while((unsigned)total < strlen(data)){
        curr_send = send(sd, data + total, bytes_left, 0);
        if (curr_send == -1){
            return false;
        }
        total += curr_send;
        bytes_left -= curr_send;
    }
    return true;
}

void web_scrape(SOCKET sd){
    struct hostent *host;
    host = gethostbyname(url_request.c_str()); //url_request is a global variable, the client sends it in

    SOCKADDR_IN site; //Socket address information

    site.sin_family = AF_INET; // address family Internet
    site.sin_port = htons (80); //Port to connect on
    site.sin_addr.s_addr = *((unsigned long*)host->h_addr);

    SOCKET s = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP); //Create socket
    if (s == INVALID_SOCKET){
        return; //Couldn't create the socket
    }

    //Try connecting...

    if (connect(s, (SOCKADDR *)&site, sizeof(site)) == SOCKET_ERROR){
        cout << "Error?" << endl; //does not come here
        return; //Couldn't connect
    }
    else{
        stringstream ss;
        ss << "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n"
           << "Host:" + url_request + "\r\n"
           << "Connection:close\r\n" //otherwise, connection will stay alive, never stop recv'ing data
           << "\r\n";
        string request = ss.str();
        complete_send(s, request.c_str());
        //send(s, request.c_str(), request.length(), 0);
    }

    char buffer[1024];
    string buf_str;
    while(recv(s, buffer, strlen(buffer), 0) > 0){
        cout << "here" << endl; //does not come here
        buf_str += buffer;
    }
    cout << buf_str << endl; //reaches here (prints nothing)

    if(buf_str.length() <= 0){
        MESSAGE = "none"; //sends a response back to the client saying nothing was received
        send(sd, MESSAGE.c_str(), (int)(MESSAGE).size(), 0);
    closesocket(s);
        return;
    }
    cout << "here" << endl; //does not get here
    //int cont_len_start = buf_str.find("Content-Length") + 16;
    //int cont_len_end = buf_str.find(" ", cont_len_start + 1);
    //int len = cont_len_end - cont_len_start;
    //int content_length = atoi(buf_str.substr(cont_len_start, len).c_str());
    size_t strip = buf_str.find("\r\n\r\n") + 4;
    buf_str = buf_str.substr(strip);

    char buf_str_char[buf_str.length()];
    memcpy(buf_str_char, buf_str.c_str(), buf_str.size());
    complete_send(sd, buf_str_char);
    closesocket(s);
}