Code snippet for checking availability of a website/ webservice

private bool WebSiteIsAvailable(string Url)
{
string Message = string.Empty;
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(Url);
request.Method = "GET";
try
{
using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
{
// Do nothing; we're only testing to see if we can get the response
}
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
Message += ((Message.Length > 0) ? "\n" : "") + ex.Message;
}
return (Message.Length == 0);
}