function valURL($url) {
  $pattern = '/(https?:\/\/(?:www3?\.)?[^\/]+?\.[^\/]{2,})/';
  if (preg_match($pattern, $url)) {
  //return "works ".$url;
  return true;
  } else { 
  //return "doesn't work ".$url; 
  return false;
  }
}