> I need to write a program that will basically hit the web site and
> return a value to a log...Thought of using a call to lynx, but wasn't
> sure how to determine success or failure

Use $?.

while sleep 30 ; do
    lynx -head -dump http://www.yoursite.com
    if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
        logger "Web site is down."
    fi
done &

J. S. Jensen