Check if a JavaScript string is a URL

If you want to check whether a string is valid HTTP URL, you can use URL constructor (it will throw on malformed string):

function isValidHttpUrl(string) {
  let url;
  
  try {
    url = new URL(string);
  } catch (_) {
    return false;  
  }

  return url.protocol === "http:" || url.protocol === "https:";
}

Note: Per RFC 3886, URL must begin with a scheme (not limited to http/https), e. g.:

• www.example.com is not valid URL (missing scheme)
• javascript:void(0) is valid URL, although not an HTTP one
• http://.. is valid URL with the host being .. (whether it resolves depends on your DNS)
• https://example..com is valid URL, same as above

A related question with an answer

Or this Regexp from Devshed:

function validURL(str) {
  var pattern = new RegExp('^(https?:\\/\\/)?'+ // protocol
    '((([a-z\\d]([a-z\\d-]*[a-z\\d])*)\\.)+[a-z]{2,}|'+ // domain name
    '((\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3}))'+ // OR ip (v4) address
    '(\\:\\d+)?(\\/[-a-z\\d%_.~+]*)*'+ // port and path
    '(\\?[;&a-z\\d%_.~+=-]*)?'+ // query string
    '(\\#[-a-z\\d_]*)?$','i'); // fragment locator
  return !!pattern.test(str);
}

function isURL(str) {
  var pattern = new RegExp('^(https?:\\/\\/)?'+ // protocol
  '((([a-z\\d]([a-z\\d-]*[a-z\\d])*)\\.?)+[a-z]{2,}|'+ // domain name
  '((\\d{1,3}\\.){3}\\d{1,3}))'+ // OR ip (v4) address
  '(\\:\\d+)?(\\/[-a-z\\d%_.~+]*)*'+ // port and path
  '(\\?[;&a-z\\d%_.~+=-]*)?'+ // query string
  '(\\#[-a-z\\d_]*)?$','i'); // fragment locator
  return pattern.test(str);
}

Rather than using a regular expression, I would recommend making use of an anchor element.

when you set the href property of an anchor, various other properties are set.

var parser = document.createElement('a');
parser.href = "http://example.com:3000/pathname/?search=test#hash";

parser.protocol; // => "http:"
parser.hostname; // => "example.com"
parser.port;     // => "3000"
parser.pathname; // => "/pathname/"
parser.search;   // => "?search=test"
parser.hash;     // => "#hash"
parser.host;     // => "example.com:3000"

source

However, if the value href is bound to is not a valid url, then the value of those auxiliary properties will be the empty string.

Edit: as pointed out in the comments: if an invalid url is used, the properties of the current URL may be substituted.

So, as long as you're not passing in the URL of the current page, you can do something like:

function isValidURL(str) {
   var a  = document.createElement('a');
   a.href = str;
   return (a.host && a.host != window.location.host);
}