Handle error or exception when host is down

[IT_Help]

Hi

in some part of my code i am forwarding the user to a different page.
eg
{
Response.redirect("www.abc.com")
}

Now i want to check if the website is available and if not then user should not see page not found, rather i should keep him on my website only, showing a gracefull error mesaage.

Can this be done as part of exception handling, rather than pinging the host?

Thanks in Advance