find if URL lead to 404
$handle = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($handle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
/* Get the HTML or whatever is linked in $url. */
$response = curl_exec($handle);
/* Check for 404 (file not found). */
$httpCode = curl_getinfo($handle, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
if($httpCode == 404) {
$profile_photo_url = GRP_GOOGLE_AVATAR;
}
curl_close($handle);